Hoi An Evening Tour from Danang: Tra Que Vegetable Village, Cycling, Coconut Forest basket boats, River boat & flower lanterns, Hoi An Old Town, Dinner. Max 9–14 pax, VIP limousine or 16-seat car, no shopping

Your guide and driver collect you from your hotel in Da Nang from 14:00. With nine guests at most in a DCar VIP limousine, everyone gets a wide reclining seat and hears every word. The road runs about 30 km south along the coast, past the Marble Mountains and a long line of beach resorts. On the way your guide explains where you're heading: a river port where Japanese, Chinese and later European traders did business from the 15th to the 19th century, and why its decline in the late 1800s, as trade moved elsewhere, is exactly what saved its old streets. Since July 2025 Hoi An has been part of Da Nang city, but it still feels like another world.

Why you need a tour guide for your Hoi An evening

Hoi An's old town packs more than 1,000 historic buildings into a maze of narrow lanes, and after dark it gets very crowded, especially on weekends and full-moon nights. Your guide plans the timing as you go, takes you to places like the Japanese Covered Bridge when the crowds are thinner, and keeps the group together in the busy streets.

Your guide also sorts out the tickets and the boats, and explains what you're looking at, from the flower lanterns on the river to the merchant houses and assembly halls, so the evening is about more than pretty photos.

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Bay Mau lies about 5 km from the old town, near where the Thu Bon River meets the sea. Settlers are said to have brought nipa palms up from the south some 200 years ago; from about seven mau of planting, the forest has spread over more than 100 hectares of brackish canals. In the wars against the French and the Americans, Hoi An's revolutionaries made their base here, slipping through the palms by basket boat. The boats, called thung chai, come with a local legend: when colonial authorities taxed boats, fishermen wove round baskets instead and argued they weren't boats at all. You ride two to a boat with a local boatman, watch the famous spinning show, and try the village's everyday skills for yourself.

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Back in town, a small wooden boat takes you out on the Hoai River, which runs along the edge of the old town and joins the Thu Bon. In the late afternoon the light softens over the water, the yellow house fronts line the bank, and the first lanterns start to glow. Each guest gets a hoa dang, a paper flower lantern with a candle inside. Locals set them on the water to ask for peace and good luck, or to remember someone they have lost, and watching yours drift away is quieter and more moving than most people expect.

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Off the boat, the light turns warm and low, and Hoi An's ochre-yellow house fronts, dark wooden shutters and bougainvillea look their best. Your guide walks the group through the quieter lanes behind the river, past merchant houses and family chapels, and explains how Hoi An's trading families lived and worked. Wear the Meetup conical hat if you like; it looks right at home against the yellow walls.

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Dinner is at Little Faifo, a restaurant in Hoi An's old town rated 4.9 stars by travellers on Tripadvisor. Your guide explains what's on the table and why it tastes of Hoi An. The town's most famous bowl is cao lau: chewy, yellowish noodles traditionally made with lye water from wood ash, topped with sliced pork, crispy crackers and fresh herbs, with only a spoonful of broth. Mi Quang, the signature noodle of the old Quang Nam province, comes with a little rich broth and a sesame rice cracker to crumble on top, and com ga Hoi An is golden rice cooked in chicken stock, served with shredded chicken and herbs. Vegetarians get dishes of their own.

Why “Faifo”?

Faifo is what the outside world once called Hoi An. From the 16th to the 18th century, when Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch ships came here to trade, European sailors, merchants and missionaries wrote the town's name as Faifo, and it appears that way on old European maps. Where the name comes from is still debated. One common explanation is Hoai Pho, “the town on the Hoai River”, the river you sailed on earlier. The French kept using Faifo well into the 20th century, and today the old name lives on in the restaurants, cafés and hotels of the town.

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UNESCO inscribed Hoi An Ancient Town in 1999 as an exceptionally well-preserved small trading port, active from the 15th to the 19th century, where Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese building traditions, and later European ones, mixed on the same streets. By now the silk lanterns are on. The tradition is usually traced to the Chinese and Japanese merchants of the 16th and 17th centuries, and since 1998 the town has held a lantern night every full moon.

After dinner, the evening is yours. Walk past narrow tube houses and Chinese assembly halls to the Japanese Covered Bridge, Chua Cau, built by Japanese merchants in the 1590s and pictured on the 20,000-dong note; it reopened in August 2024 after restoration. Browse the lantern stalls and the night market, try a street snack, sit by the river, or catch Bai Choi, the sung, bingo-style folk game of central Vietnam, on the riverside stage. Your guide tells you where to find everything and where to meet the limousine.

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Your guide and driver pick you up at your Da Nang hotel at 14:00. You travel in a DCar VIP limousine, max 9 guests on board, so everyone gets a wide reclining seat and room to stretch out. The drive south takes about 45 minutes and passes the Marble Mountains, five limestone hills named after the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth. On the way, your guide tells how Hoi An grew from a Cham river port into the trading town where Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese merchants met.

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The group gathers at the edge of Tra Que village. Each guest gets a bike adjusted to fit. Take a short test ride on the village lane, check the brakes and the seat height, and swap bikes if something doesn't feel right. Your guide also goes over the route for the ride to Bay Mau later in the afternoon.

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Tra Que sits on a small islet between the Co Co River and the Tra Que Lagoon, about 3 km from the old town. Families settled here around 400 years ago and found that the sandy, river-fed soil was perfect for herbs. Local legend says a Nguyen lord once ate a meal made with the village's greens and loved their taste, a mix of tea (tra) and cinnamon (que). He gave the village its name. Today around 200 households still farm about 18 hectares here, by hand, with no chemical fertiliser.

The secret is in the lagoon. Farmers collect seaweed from the water and dig it into the beds as fertiliser. It gives Tra Que basil, mint, coriander and lettuce their strong smell and clean taste. Almost every bowl of cao lau and mi Quang in Hoi An comes with greens from this village. In 2022, Tra Que's way of farming was recognised as National Intangible Cultural Heritage. In 2024, UN Tourism named Tra Que one of the world's Best Tourism Villages.

Then it's your turn. A local farmer shows you how to turn the soil with a hoe, plant seedlings and water the beds the old way, with two cans hanging from a bamboo shoulder pole. It's light work, more laughter than labour.

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From Tra Que, you ride out along small lanes into the countryside east of Hoi An. The road runs between rice paddies, lotus ponds and fish ponds, past village houses with the family altar in the front room. You also see family tombs standing in the middle of the fields. In central Vietnam, many families bury their ancestors on their own land, so they stay close to home.

It's flat and slow. Your guide stops whenever something is worth a look: a water buffalo in the field, rice drying by the road, kids waving from a doorway. This is the Hoi An most visitors only see through a car window, and the best way to see how people here still live.

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Bay Mau means “seven mau”, an old Vietnamese land unit. That was the size of the forest when, locals say, settlers from the Mekong Delta planted the first water palms here more than 200 years ago. The palms spread along the brackish creeks where the Thu Bon River meets the sea, and today cover nearly 100 hectares. During the wars against the French and the Americans, the thick palms and narrow channels hid local fighters, and the forest became a revolutionary base. In 2009, UNESCO included this wetland in the Cu Lao Cham – Hoi An World Biosphere Reserve.

You explore it the local way, in a thung chai: a round basket boat woven from split bamboo. Fishermen on this coast have used them for generations. A popular story says they were made round to avoid a French tax on boats, because a basket isn't a boat. Your boatman paddles you deep into the palms, shows you the crabs and small fish that live among the roots, and may fold you a ring from a coconut leaf.

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From the forest, you walk to the boat dock and board a wooden boat for the ride up the Thu Bon River. This river made Hoi An rich. In the 16th and 17th centuries, ships from Japan, China, Portugal and the Netherlands anchored here to trade silk, porcelain and spices, and Europeans knew the port as Faifo. Later the river slowly filled with sand, big ships moved north to Da Nang, and Hoi An was left almost untouched. That is why the old town still looks the way it does.

On the way, you pass fishermen's lift nets, riverside villages and small boatyards. Across the river from the old town lies Kim Bong, the carpentry village whose craftsmen built many of Hoi An's wooden houses and boats. You reach the old town around 18:00, just as the first lanterns come on.

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Dinner is at Little Faifo, a restaurant in Hoi An's old town rated 4.9 stars by travellers on Tripadvisor. Some dishes only really exist in Hoi An. Cao lau is the town's own noodle: thick, chewy and a little smoky, served with sliced pork, crispy crackers, a spoon of sauce and a handful of Tra Que greens. Locals say real cao lau needs water from the old Ba Le well and lye made from wood ash, which is why it is so hard to copy anywhere else. White rose dumplings are small, see-through shrimp dumplings folded to look like a flower, and banh xeo is a crispy rice pancake you roll yourself in rice paper with fresh herbs.

The restaurant takes its name from Faifo, what the outside world once called Hoi An. From the 16th to the 18th century, when Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese and Dutch ships came here to trade, European sailors, merchants and missionaries wrote the town's name as Faifo, and it appears that way on old European maps. Where the name comes from is still debated. One common explanation is Hoai Pho, “the town on the Hoai River”. The French kept using Faifo well into the 20th century, and today the old name lives on in the restaurants, cafés and hotels of the town.

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After dinner, the old town is yours. In the evening the lanes are closed to traffic and fill with the glow of silk lanterns. Your guide walks you to the Japanese Covered Bridge, built by Japanese merchants around 1593 and the symbol of the town, then points out the night market on An Hoi islet across the river and the best lantern streets for photos.

Then wander at your own pace. Take a small boat on the river and float a candle lantern for a wish, a custom locals still keep. Once a month, on the 14th night of the lunar calendar, the town switches off its electric lights and glows by lantern light alone. Meet the limousine at the agreed spot at 21:00.

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Along the way, we stop at Non Nuoc Stone Carving Village, where local artisans have been shaping marble into fine art for more than 200 years. Watch the craftsmen at work and see their detailed sculptures up close.

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Hop into a round bamboo basket boat and glide through narrow water channels shaded by coconut palms. Join a friendly basket boat race and see if you can keep your boat spinning in the right direction. It's harder than it looks, and twice as fun!

Afterwards, slow down with a glass of fresh lemon juice and a traditional Hoi An cake.

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Arrive in Hoi An Ancient Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, just as the afternoon light turns golden. Stroll past centuries-old shophouses and visit the colourful Phuc Kien (Fujian) Assembly Hall, the famous Japanese Covered Bridge and a traditional old merchant house.

As dusk falls, thousands of silk lanterns flicker to life. Enjoy free time to browse Nguyen Hoang Night Market and soak up the atmosphere.

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Sit down to Hoi An home cooking at Little Faifo, a restaurant named after the town's old name and rated 4.9 on Tripadvisor. Vietnamese food, with vegetarian and halal options.

Then board a small boat on the Hoai River and release your own flower lantern onto the water, a local tradition for wishing good luck to yourself and your loved ones. Drift along with the glowing reflections of the lantern streets around you.

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We head back to Da Nang and drop you off at your hotel. Thank you for joining us, and we hope to see you again on your next adventure!

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