Manila or Bangkok?

Neither city is a place to swim in the sea, and they are level on this. In Bangkok the nearby coast is mudflat and mangrove, so swimming means a hotel pool, and rooftop pools are a real draw. Bang Saen and Pattaya are about two hours away at most.

In Manila the bay along Roxas Boulevard is too polluted to enter, and the Batangas or Bataan beaches take two to three hours by road. The practical difference is how you leave: from Bangkok most people head south by road or rail to Hua Hin or on to the islands, while Manila mostly serves as the place you fly out of to Palawan, Boracay or Bohol.

This is where the two cities are furthest apart. Bangkok is a city you could visit just to eat. Boat noodles, som tam and shophouse curries are on offer from breakfast to past midnight, Yaowarat becomes an open-air kitchen after dark, and above the street level sits a deep range of ambitious Thai restaurants.

Manila has rewarding food of its own, with lechon, sisig, sinigang and halo-halo, and Binondo makes a fine afternoon of dumplings and hopia. The best modern cooking is concentrated in Makati, Poblacion and BGC, though, and elsewhere quality is patchy and chains are common. In Bangkok, good food finds you in almost any district.

Bangkok has the grander sightseeing. On Rattanakosin Island, the Grand Palace, the Emerald Buddha, Wat Pho's Reclining Buddha and Wat Arun across the river make a run of world-class monuments within a short walk or boat hop. Smaller temples still in daily use, the Thonburi canals and the Jim Thompson House fill further days.

Manila's history is more fragmented, because the battle of 1945 destroyed so much of it. What remains is a Spanish colonial core rather than a royal one: the walls of Intramuros, Fort Santiago and the baroque San Agustin Church. The National Museum complex is arguably stronger than anything Bangkok offers on the museum front, with Luna's Spoliarium as its centrepiece, but two or three days cover the essentials.

Bangkok offers more kinds of night out, and better ones. There are polished cocktail bars and clubs along Sukhumvit, Thonglor and Ekkamai, backpacker street parties on Khao San Road, a long-established gay scene in Silom, and the skyline rooftop bars the city is known for.

Manila goes out just as late and with real warmth. Poblacion's small bars and street stalls are its best district, and BGC is the dressed-up alternative. What sets it apart is karaoke, taken seriously by everyone. The limit is that each district is cut off from the others by traffic, so you settle in one place for the night, whereas in Bangkok the Skytrain makes it easy to move between areas.

Manila has the edge for getting outdoors, though neither city is green at heart. From Tagaytay's ridge you look down on Taal volcano in its lake, the Rizal hills have waterfalls and the Masungi trails, and peaks like Pico de Loro make early-morning day hikes. Anilao's reefs also give divers something Bangkok has no answer to.

Bangkok's outdoor life is mostly Lumphini Park's monitor lizards and an afternoon cycling the raised paths of Bang Krachao. Khao Yai's forests and the Kanchanaburi river country are impressive, but they are overnight trips, not quick escapes.

Ayutthaya alone makes Bangkok the stronger base for days out: the old Siamese capital is about an hour and a half north by train, and a bicycle carries you between its ruined prangs and the Buddha head caught in tree roots in one easy day. Add the Amphawa floating market, the Maeklong railway market with its stalls folding back for trains, and the war history of Kanchanaburi, and there are several good days out before the list runs thin.

Around Manila, the outings are fewer and harder to reach. The ferry to Corregidor's wartime fortress and the Malinta Tunnel is the classic, followed by Tagaytay for bulalo and lake views, the old towns of Laguna and Kapampangan cooking in Pampanga. Each is worthwhile, but traffic stretches every journey, so anything beyond two or three means early starts or a hired driver.

Bangkok is a little easier with children. It has more attractions built for them, including Sea Life under Siam Paragon, Safari World, Dream World and KidZania, and simply riding the Skytrain or a river boat counts as an outing. In Manila, family days revolve around Manila Ocean Park, the mall ice rinks and the free natural history museum, plus a calesa ride round the walls of Intramuros.

Both cities welcome children warmly, and both wear them out with heat, broken pavements and slow traffic, so a pram is of little use in either. Bangkok's rail lines make short, manageable days easier to arrange. In Manila more of the day tends to go on sitting in cars.

Rail against road sums up the difference. In Bangkok, the BTS and MRT carry you above and below the traffic between Siam, Sukhumvit, Silom, Chatuchak and Chinatown, and express boats run up the river to the Grand Palace and Wat Arun. The real gaps are the old city and the hot walk from the nearest station.

In Manila, the car usually wins by default. The metropolis is a sprawl of separate cities, and its rail lines do not join up well and miss many places visitors want to reach, so most people rely on ride-hailing and accept long waits in jams. Makati, BGC and Intramuros are pleasant on foot, but getting from one to the next is a journey in itself.

Bangkok gives shoppers more range. Its malls are as lavish as Manila's, from Siam Paragon to ICONSIAM, but it also has the street-level side Manila lacks: Chatuchak's thousands of weekend stalls, night markets, Chinatown's gold shops and the flower and amulet markets.

Manila's strength is the sheer scale of its malls, along the bayfront, in Ortigas and around the Ayala Center, which double as refuges from the heat. Divisoria and Greenhills are good for bargains. For things to take home, Bangkok has Thai silk, celadon and benjarong porcelain, while Manila has South Sea pearls, piña weaving and dried mangoes.

Both are cheap places to travel, with Bangkok a little kinder to the budget. It offers comfortable hotel rooms with rooftop pools for little money, cheap massages and tailoring, and street meals that cost almost nothing. Manila is close behind, with low-cost carinderia meals, jeepney rides and a free National Museum.

In both cities, imported drinks and international restaurants push the bill up. The places to watch are Sukhumvit and the riverside in Bangkok, and Makati and BGC in Manila, where prices are set for expatriates.

The two are broadly level, but they offer very different evenings. Bangkok's distinctive show is khon, the masked Ramakien drama staged at the Sala Chalermkrung and the National Theatre, and an evening of Muay Thai at Rajadamnern or Lumpinee comes with its own ritual music.

Manila is the place for song. Its bar bands play with real skill across Makati and Quezon City, and English-language productions of Broadway and West End musicals have strong local casts. The Cultural Center of the Philippines is home to the national orchestra, ballet and the tinikling folk dance.

Bangkok is the easier city to unwind in, mostly because massage there takes no planning. Parlours are so common and keep such late hours that an hour on a mat after a day of temples turns into a habit, not a special occasion. A few Japanese-style onsen complexes give it the nearest thing to bathing culture in either city. Quiet is never far away either: a morning lap of Lumphini's lake or an afternoon by the pool fits easily into an ordinary sightseeing day.

Manila has spas at every level, from plain neighbourhood rooms to hotel retreats offering Swedish and shiatsu massage, and a long session is easy to afford. What it lacks is calm within the city, with little green space beyond Rizal Park. For real quiet you have to drive about two hours up to the cooler air of Tagaytay's ridge, so rest becomes a separate outing rather than something you fit around the rest of the day.