My traffic in philippines would actually go out of the country and back in, occasionally via los angeles (like 500ms+) because the incumbent monopoly telco refuses to peer with any other isp, so if you don't use them your traffic is intentionally screwed [there is an IX there for small ISPs, the 99% market share one just doesn't peer there]

Aside from singapore, every other country has something approaching this level of fucked-ness - HK to CN traffic often goes via LA/seattle, TW to CN traffic often goes via LA/seattle, all of china telecom's peering links are oversubscribed to death anyway and fall over during peak hours, a lot of the SEA traffic i've seen traverses singapore or worse, even if it's entirely domestic bound