The River Smells Like Wax and Marigolds
The first thing you notice isn’t the lanterns. It’s the smell — paraffin wax, incense sticks, and something floral that might be marigolds or might be the frangipani trees along the riverbank. You’re standing on the An Hoi Bridge and the Thu Bon River below is still mostly dark, just a few early candles bobbing near the bank. It’s maybe 6:15 PM. The real show doesn’t start for another hour.
But the old quarter is already shifting. One by one, the electric lights click off along Nguyen Phuc Chu Street, and the silk lanterns — hundreds of them, strung between shopfronts like fat, glowing fruit — take over. The effect is immediate and a little disorienting. Your depth perception changes. The narrow lanes of Hoi An’s UNESCO World Heritage town become something else entirely.
What Actually Happens (and What Doesn’t)
Let me be honest: the Hoi An Lantern Festival isn’t really a festival in the structured sense. There’s no main stage, no emcee, no scheduled program you need to follow. It’s more like the entire old town collectively decides to light candles and turn off the electricity on the 14th day of each lunar month. That’s the whole concept.
What you get is this: vendors selling paper lotus lanterns along the riverbank (expect to pay 20,000 to 50,000 VND per lantern — prices vary and some vendors will try higher), boats offering rides on the Hoai River branch for around 30,000-50,000 VND per person, and the general atmosphere of a town that looks genuinely magical under nothing but silk and candlelight.
There are traditional music performances scattered around — bai choi singing, sometimes a small folk music ensemble near the Japanese Covered Bridge. Local temples open their courtyards, and the incense smoke mixing with river fog creates this haze that makes everything look slightly unreal. But none of it is tightly organized. You wander, you stop, you float a lantern. That’s the experience.
Putting a Lantern on the Water
This is the part everyone comes for, and it’s worth doing despite being thoroughly touristy. You buy a small paper lantern with a candle inside, find a spot along the Hoai River (the branch of the Thu Bon that runs through the old quarter), light it, and set it on the water. You’re supposed to make a wish.
The logistics: the best spots are near An Hoi Bridge or along the stretch south of the Japanese Covered Bridge. By 7:30 PM these areas get packed — genuinely difficult to move through, especially on weekends or during peak months. If you want the classic photo of hundreds of floating lanterns reflecting on the water, you need to be in position by 7 PM at the latest.
One thing the guides don’t mention: a lot of these lanterns pile up against the bridge pilings and riverbank within minutes. It’s not exactly the gentle downstream drift you see in the Instagram photos. Someone collects them later. Still beautiful, but manage your expectations about the cinematic slow-float-into-the-distance moment.
The Crowd Problem (and How to Deal With It)
Hoi An’s old quarter is small. Really small. And on lantern nights it fills up fast — we’re talking shoulder-to-shoulder on the main streets by 8 PM. The narrow lanes that feel charming during the day become bottlenecks at night.
Some practical advice:
Timing matters more than you think. The biggest lantern nights fall around major Vietnamese holidays — Tet, Mid-Autumn Festival, and the first full moon of the lunar year (March 2, 2026, if you’re planning ahead). These are spectacular but absolutely mobbed. A random Tuesday full moon in, say, April or October will be much more manageable.
The March-May window is probably the sweet spot weather-wise — less rain than the autumn months, warm but not yet at peak summer humidity. October and November can be rainy, which doesn’t cancel the festival but does thin the crowds.
Escape routes exist. When the main streets get unbearable, duck into one of the side alleys heading away from the river. Some of the best lantern views are actually from the less-trafficked streets running parallel to Tran Phu. Or cross to the An Hoi side of the river — the peninsula across from the old town is less crowded and offers good views looking back.
Getting There and Finding a Room
Hoi An is about 30 km from Da Nang International Airport — roughly 40 minutes by car, depending on traffic. There’s no train station in Hoi An itself, so most people fly into Da Nang and transfer.
For airport transfers, KLOOK has shuttle bookings and private car options that are generally cheaper than negotiating with taxi drivers at the airport. Grab (the Southeast Asian ride-hailing app) also works well for this route.
Accommodation is where planning matters. On lantern nights, hotels in the old quarter book up fast, and prices spike — sometimes double the regular rate. Book at least two weeks ahead for full moon dates.
My suggestion: stay within walking distance of the old quarter but not necessarily inside it. The area around An Bang Beach (about 4 km east) has good mid-range options and you get a beach as a bonus. Search Agoda for the Hoi An area — filter by the Cam An ward if you want the beach proximity, or Minh An ward if you want to be closest to the ancient town.
The Day Before the Lanterns
Here’s what I’d actually recommend: arrive a day early. Hoi An during daylight is a completely different experience, and you’ll appreciate the lantern night more if you’ve already oriented yourself.
Walk through the ancient town when the streets are navigable. The Japanese Covered Bridge (Chua Cau) dates to the 16th century and is worth seeing without the nighttime crowds. The Chinese Assembly Halls — Fujian, Cantonese, Hainan — each have their own architectural character. The Central Market is loud and chaotic and sells everything from fresh herbs to knock-off sunglasses.
And eat. Hoi An might be the best food town in Vietnam, which is saying something. The two dishes you absolutely must try:
Cao Lau — thick rice noodles in a small amount of broth with pork and greens. The thing about Cao Lau is that it supposedly can only be made authentically with water from a specific ancient Cham well (Ba Le Well) and ash from trees on the nearby Cham Islands. Whether that’s still strictly true is debatable, but the dish tastes different here than anywhere else. Morning Glory restaurant does a reliable version, and if you want to try several Hoi An noodle dishes at once, The Noodle House does a “flight” of three bowls.
White Rose dumplings (banh bao banh vac) — translucent steamed shrimp dumplings topped with crispy shallots. There’s apparently only one family in Hoi An that makes the wrappers, and they supply every restaurant in town. You can eat them anywhere, but the White Rose Restaurant on Hai Ba Trung Street is the source.
For activities beyond food, KKday has day trips to the My Son ruins (the Cham temple complex about an hour away) and cooking classes, which are genuinely fun here because the market shopping is part of the experience.
When the Candles Burn Out
The festival winds down around 10 PM — the electric lights come back on gradually, the lantern vendors pack up, and the crowds thin out surprisingly fast. By 10:30 the old quarter is quiet enough that you can actually hear the river.
I walked back to my hotel along the river path that night, sandals in hand because the cobblestones had been killing my feet for four hours. There was still wax residue on my fingers from the lantern I’d floated. A woman was fishing off the bridge — just sitting there with a hand line, like the whole evening had been perfectly normal.