Hoi an Ancient Town, Vietnam

Hoi An’s Japanese Covered Bridge, built in the 1590s, crosses a narrow tributary of the Thu Bon River that no longer separates the two communities it was designed to connect. The Japanese merchants who commissioned it had largely disappeared within a generation of its completion: in 1635 the Tokugawa shogunate’s Sakoku edict ended official Japanese trade voyages, cutting off the flow of new settlers to the Nihonmachi quarter. The community that built the bridge and traded silver for Vietnamese silk, sugar, and agarwood was absorbed into Vietnamese society within decades, leaving the bridge as the only significant physical trace of their presence. This is the kind of layered history that makes Hoi An worth visiting. The town looks preserved; it is actually a palimpsest, with Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Dutch, and Vietnamese traces written over each other across four centuries of trade.

The ticket system

Walking around Hoi An’s Ancient Town streets costs nothing. The entrance ticket (120,000 VND for international visitors as of 2026, roughly $5) is required only to enter specific heritage buildings: the assembly halls, historic houses, the Japanese Covered Bridge, the Museum of History and Culture, and the Museum of Folk Culture. Each ticket comes with five tear-off vouchers, and each site visited costs one voucher. There are 22 designated sites in the system, so a single ticket covers five of them. For most visitors, five is more than enough to see in one day. Tickets are sold at small yellow booths around the Old Town perimeter, near An Hoi Bridge, along Le Loi Street, and near the Covered Bridge itself.

The Old Town is pedestrianized in the evenings, when lanterns are lit along the riverside and the narrow streets fill with a manageable crowd. Full moon nights, when extra lanterns are lit and electric lighting is minimized in parts of the Old Town, are the most atmospheric timing to visit if your dates allow.

What to see

The Phuc Kien Assembly Hall, built in 1690, is the most architecturally impressive of the Chinese community assembly halls, with a large courtyard, ornate painted figurines, and carvings that received restoration attention in recent years. It was built by Fujian immigrants and served as a meeting place for the Hokkien community rather than a temple in the conventional sense.

The Tan Ky House on Nguyen Thai Hoc Street is one of the better-preserved merchant houses, a 200-year-old townhouse that spans three generations of a Vietnamese trading family, with Japanese roof construction details and Chinese decorative motifs layered on top of a Vietnamese floor plan, which is a physical record of Hoi An’s multi-cultural merchant heritage in a single building.

For something quieter, the streets east of the main tourist circuit around Bach Dang riverside tend to be calmer and have a higher concentration of working local businesses alongside the heritage sites.

Cao lau and what makes it local

Cao lau is Hoi An’s most geographically specific dish: thick wheat noodles served with char-grilled pork, bean sprouts, fresh herbs, and rice crackers, with a small amount of concentrated broth. The noodles traditionally require water from a specific well in the Old Town (Ba Le Well) and wood ash from the Cham Islands to achieve their texture and colour. This is one of those food origin stories that is partly genuine and partly tourist-friendly myth, but the dish is genuinely distinct from anything served in the rest of Vietnam and worth trying multiple times to calibrate your preference.

Ba Be Restaurant at 26 Thai Phien Street and Cao Lau Ba Le at a spot near the well are both consistently recommended by locals and food writers over the more tourist-facing riverside options. Arrive before noon; the best versions sell out by early afternoon.

White rose dumplings (Banh Vac) are delicate steamed rice-dough parcels filled with minced shrimp. Madame Khanh at 49 Tran Cao Van Street runs the most celebrated version, a family recipe that she is credited with originating. She opens early and frequently sells out before midday.

Banh Mi Phuong on Phan Chau Trinh Street remains the most famous banh mi in Hoi An, and the queue is real but moves quickly. The sandwich is made with a Vietnamese baguette (lighter and crispier than the French original, a colonial holdover adapted to local flour) with grilled pork, pate, picked daikon and carrot, cucumber, and chilli. It is objectively good and does not need the tourist reputation to justify the queue.

Getting around and day trips

Hoi An village sits 4 km from Cua Dai Beach and 30 km from Da Nang, the nearest city with a major airport (DAD). Taxis and ride-hailing apps (Grab is the dominant platform in Vietnam) make the 30-minute transfer from Da Nang Airport straightforward; expect to pay around 200,000-250,000 VND (about $8-10). There is no convenient train or bus from the airport to Hoi An directly, so Grab or a pre-arranged hotel transfer is the practical option.

Bicycle rental within Hoi An is cheap (50,000-80,000 VND per day) and the town is compact enough that cycling to the beach or to nearby An Bang Beach is easier than negotiating taxi logistics. An Bang Beach, 3 km from the Old Town, is the better beach compared to Cua Dai (which has suffered significant erosion in recent years) and has a cluster of relaxed beachfront restaurants.

The Cham Islands (Cu Lao Cham), a cluster of eight islands 18 km offshore, are accessible by speedboat in about 20 minutes. Snorkelling and diving are the main draws; the surrounding marine protected area has reasonable coral coverage. Boats leave from the An Hoi pier and the trips are best booked through local operators the day before rather than through Old Town tour desks, which add a significant markup.

Where to stay

Hoi An is heavily supplied with accommodation at every price point. The main divide is between staying inside the Old Town perimeter (more expensive, noisier at night, no vehicle access) and the streets immediately south of the Old Town, which are quieter and have better road access.

La Siesta Hoi An Resort and Spa on Le Hong Phong Street is a well-regarded mid-to-luxury option within walking distance of the Old Town, with a pool and spa that hold up to their billing. Rates typically run from around $80-150 per night for a standard room.

For smaller guesthouses, the area around Nguyen Truong To Street to the east of the Old Town has several quiet family-run options in the $20-40 per night range that are within easy cycling or walking distance of the heritage area.

Practical notes

Hoi An sits on a floodplain, and flooding between October and December can be significant: the Old Town floods regularly in heavy years, sometimes with water knee-high on the main streets. If you are visiting in the October-December window, check recent weather reports and build flexibility into your itinerary. The months from February through July are driest and most comfortable.

Tailoring is one of Hoi An’s best-known offerings and genuinely good value, but the standard advice applies: give at least 48 hours for alterations, do a fitting before committing to the final cut, and avoid ordering the night before you leave. There are hundreds of tailors; quality varies enormously. Yaly Couture and A Dong Silk are frequently cited as reliable by return visitors.

Cooking classes are popular and Hoi An is a good place to take one, as the teaching generally starts with a market visit and covers dishes specific to central Vietnamese cuisine rather than generic “Vietnamese food.” Morning Glory’s cooking school and Red Bridge Cooking School both have decent reputations and run half-day sessions from around $35-50 per person.