Tao Dan Park

This guide to Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City follows the bird cafe ritual that fills the trees here every morning, where owners hang songbird cages and swap tips on training their birds to learn phrases from one another for competition. It also traces the ground itself back to 1869, when French colonial administrators carved a public garden away from the governor's palace next door, and to the Vietnamese name locals gave it after independence. Best heard early, before the last notes of the morning fade.