Mauritius capital city turned out to bear good numbers of the endemic and endangered Mauritius flying fox. Curlew and Terek sandpipers or greater sand plovers occur in the city’s Terre Rouge bird sanctuary.

Bustling Bangkok offers local goodies in urban Lumphini and Rot Fai Parks and many waders and migrants in Bang Pu wetland. We face exotic bird trade at a local market and see a lost species on a museum.

Vietnam’s capital city gardens are a passerines haven. We bagged gray-throated martins, sooty-headed bulbuls and gray-breasted prinia on a Red River island and ‘commixtus’ Asian tit in the Botanical Gardens.

The first stop of a long backpacking trip allowed us to get the hang on Southeast Asian birds. Gardens by the Bay and Singapore Botanic Gardens are mandatory stops in the Lion City.