Central Market
The herbs, the noodles and the fabric stalls where you order a suit in twenty-four hours.
Duration
45 min – 1 hr 30 min
Best time
Before 8am
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The market runs along the river at the eastern end of the old town. The back is given over to food: fresh herbs by the armful, cao lau noodles made nowhere else, and an aisle of food stalls where you sit elbow to elbow.
The front half is fabric country. This is where you choose a length before going up to the tailor, and that is the right order: cloth first, then the price of the work, and the two are haggled separately.
Getting there
Tran Phu street, east end of the old town, on the Thu Bon riverbank. All on foot.
Rules on site
Prices quoted to visitors start at double or triple: ask before you pick anything up. The food aisles close early, in the early afternoon.
Other places in Hoi An
- Hoi An old townA fifteenth-century trading port left intact, silk lanterns and yellow timber houses.
- Japanese covered bridgeThe symbol of the town, built by the Japanese community around 1600, with a small temple inside it.
- An Bang BeachThe sand four kilometres from the old town, lined with unpretentious bars.
- My Son SanctuaryFourth-century Cham brick tower-temples in a jungle bowl, bombed and then restored.