Hoi An

The Hoi An Basket Boat Ride: What It Is Actually Like Before You Book It

Part of this river has turned into a show with loudspeakers and spinning boats. The quiet stretches cost exactly the same. Here are the two questions to ask before you hand over any money.

Four kilometres east of Hoi An, where the river widens before it reaches the sea, there is a forest of nipa palm growing straight out of the water. Narrow channels run through it. You go in sitting in a round woven bowl about two metres across, with one person standing behind you doing all the work with a single paddle.

It is one of the genuinely distinctive things to do in central Vietnam. It is also, in one specific part of the forest, closer to a theme park than a boat ride, and nobody warns you which version you are buying.

What a basket boat actually is

The round boat — thung chai — is not a tourist invention. It is a working fishing craft, woven from bamboo and sealed, and the usual explanation for the shape is that under French colonial rule boats were taxed and a round basket was argued not to be a boat. Whether that story is literally true or has simply been told so often that it has become true, the boats themselves are ordinary working equipment up and down this coast.

The ride takes place in the Bay Mau coconut forest — bay mau means seven mau, an old unit of land. The palms are nipa, a water palm, and during the war the channels through them were used as cover. Most guides will tell you this. Few mention that the forest was substantially replanted afterwards.

The two versions of this trip

This is the part worth understanding, because it is the whole experience.

The loud version

In one stretch of water near the main landing there are speakers on poles playing dance music, boats packed close together, men performing spinning routines in the middle of a ring of other boats, and people throwing money. If you arrive at the busiest hour, this is what you get, and a lot of visitors come away saying the basket boats were a tourist trap.

They are not wrong about what they experienced. They are wrong that it was the only option.

The quiet version

Two hundred metres further into the channels the music does not reach. The palms close overhead, the water goes still and green, you can hear the paddle. Crabs sit on the stems. Your rower will usually stop and weave you something out of a palm leaf, which is charming the first time and is also the moment a tip is expected.

It is the same price. It is the same forest. It is a completely different hour.

What it costs

At the rate we checked in early October 2026 the boat works out at a little under five US dollars for two people. That is the official posted price, and it is the number to have in your head, because what gets quoted at the water’s edge is not always it.

A tip at the end is normal and deserved — this is hard physical work in the sun. It is not included in the figure above. Small notes, handed over directly; we explain the note sizes in money in Vietnam.

The two questions to ask before you pay

Ask them of whoever is taking your money — the ticket desk, your driver, your hotel, or the tour operator selling you the day.

1. “Does this go into the quiet channels, or stay in the open water with the music?” Ask it plainly. The answer, and how quickly it comes, tells you a great deal. Anyone who actually knows the place will know exactly what you mean.
2. “Is the spinning performance included, and can we decline it?” You can always decline it. It is easier to decline before you are sitting in the middle of a ring of boats with a crowd watching.

Tipping, spinning and the fish trap

Three things happen on almost every ride, and all three are easier if you expect them.

• The spinning. One or two men spin a boat violently on the spot while music plays. It is a real skill and genuinely impressive. It is also a performance done for tips, and the tipping is public and a little pointed. If you want to watch, watch and tip. If you do not, say so at the start.
• The palm-leaf weaving. Your rower makes you a ring, a grasshopper or a hat out of a leaf. It is lovely. It is also the tip moment.
• Casting a net or checking a fish trap. Often offered as a go. If you are not steady on your feet, stay sitting — a round boat has no keel and moves under you instantly.

Who should skip it

We would rather lose the booking than have you unhappy, so plainly:

• If getting into a low, wobbling round boat from a floating dock is going to be a struggle, skip it. There is no graceful way in and no handrail.
• If you have had enough of organised activity and want an afternoon that is yours, skip it. It is forty-five minutes of being paddled about.
• If strong sun is a problem for you, the forest gives shade but the open water does not, and you are sitting still in it.

What you would do instead with that afternoon: the old town is at its best from about four o’clock, which we lay out in Hoi An at night and in the three-day plan. If you need the old town ticket, that is a separate thing entirely.

Common questions