Central Vietnam is home to some beautiful destinations. Hoi An is one of the most popular stops along the banana pancake trail. Even though parts of Hoi An can be touristic, there are still hidden gems. If you’re after an inexpensive way to see this ancient town, jump on the free Hoi An bike tour.
Originally, I wrote about this bike tour of Hoi An as one of 5 memorable tours of Hoi An, but I believe it deserves its own place to live.
While there’s plenty to see inside this ancient port town by yourself, there’s something special about being shown around by a local, and learning the stories and culture of this beautiful town.
Why should I put Hoi An on my Vietnam bucket list?
Hoi An is a major stop on many first-time travelers’ Vietnam itinerary. Hoi An is well known for many reasons:
- Hoi An Lantern Festival – held every lunar month on the 14th, when the moon is at its brightest. The town shines bright with countless lanterns illuminating the dark sky and reflecting from the smooth river.
- The Japanese Bridge, or Cau Chua Pagoda. This icon of Hoi An is a wooden pedestrian bridge dating to the 18th Right in the center of downtown Hoi An, the Japanese Bridge was first constructed in the 1590s by the Japanese population to link the Chinese Quarter.
- Tailored suits and dresses are other common items on tourist lists. It’s also popular to buy bright clothing with fruit on it.
Sure, these three points are well worth the effort to visit Hoi An, but if you have a day or two spare, there’s much more to this Vietnamese gem and a perfect way to see that the lesser-known attractions of Hoi An are by a free bike tour.
Is the free bike tour of Hoi An really free?
No, the bike tour of Hoi An isn’t completely free. You will visit a number of local places where you are expected to tip. Plus your knowledgeable guide isn’t getting paid to run these tours – so a tip is extremely appreciated.
My guide, 23-year-old Thanh, said these tours were a requirement for her university course. But she did enjoy doing them and talking to people from all over the world. You could tell he genuinely enjoyed the interactions with both locals and visitors.
All up, I paid 110,000 Dong ($4.75 USD). So, No, the “free” bike tour of Hoi An isn’t totally free – but for a tour that lasts half a day, it’s close enough in my mind. This amount includes all 5 tips you’ll make for the tour around Hoi An. Make sure you bring cash to the tour.
How do I book my spot on Hoi An’s free bicycle tour?
I took the free bike tour of Hoi An through hoianfreetour.com. The itinerary listed below if for their tour free bike to Kim Bong Village. Filling out the booking form on their website is the best way to reserve your place on this bicycle tour of Hoi An.
Hoianfreetour.com offers many itineraries to suit you/your group. Visiting Kim Bong Village is just one of the great places around Hoi An you can visit.
How do I rent a bicycle in Hoi An?
Hoi An Free Tour rents bikes to people, whether on a tour or not. It costs 30,000 Vietnamese Dong for a full day of hiring one bicycle.
There are other places you can get a bike from in Hoi An. The hostel I stayed in, Paddys Hostel, was amazing. Not only did they have free bike rental, keep them out all day if you wanted, they also organize many great tours around the hoi an area.
Where are the stops on the free bike tour of Hoi An – Biking to Kim Bong Village
The free bike tour to Kim Bong Village is a half-day trip just outside the ancient walls of Hoi An. Meeting at the downtown office of Hoi An Free Tour, you will begin peddling around 8am.
There are 4 main stops to the free bike tour to Kim Bong Village. Each place gives an insight into the history and culture of Hoi An, and how many locals get by creating and cooking.
Kim Bong Village is a great snapshot of what goes into behind the scenes of Hoi An and Vietnam in general.
From Hoi An to Kim Bong Village
The best way to get from Hoi An to Kim Bong Village on Cam Kin Island is by local ferry. For 20,000 Vietnamese Dong return, you can catch a ferry to Kim Bong Village. It’s a very short trip, 5-10 minutes max. Just load your bikes onto the boat and take a seat. It is quite noisy, but the whole experience is enjoyable.
Stop 1 – Woodworking shop
The first stop on this free tour of Hoi An is Kim Bong Village Woodworking shop. There are so many things made from wood here it’s pretty amazing. From hand fans to chopsticks, to boats.
If you’re looking for a genuine souvenir from hoi An, the woodworking shop in Kim Bong Village has plenty to choose from.
You can even watch the workers crafting items, mainly the wooden boats laying around the workshop. I learned a lot from the traditional woodshop on Cam Kim Island.
Costing around 5,000 USD these boats are manufactured from scratch right here in the workshop. Logs are sunk in the nearby river for a year, this strengthens the wood due to the methane in the water and then left to dry out completely over a week.
If you’ve ever noticed eyes painted on the front of Vietnamese boats, they are for a cultural reason. The fish eyes on boats help fish be comfortable with this giant wooden structure floating among them. It’s said the fish even help these boats seek out greater schools of fish.
Only after a bottle of wine is smashed on the boat is it seaworthy – I never noticed the eyes on the front of the boat until Thanh mentioned them. They appeared much more frequently after that.
Whether you’re interested in boats or wooden souvenirs – it’s an amazing thing to watch these craftsmen create works of art.
This is the only stop of the main 4 that doesn’t require tipping.
One word of warning; while I was Visiting, there were grinders and even a welder in operation. Be careful where you walk as sparks or welding arcs can be very dangerous.
Stop 2 – Family Hyanh Local Temple
This small temple is a collection by a large group of Hyanh family members pooling their money to build and look after this religious site. My guide, Thanh, was apart of this family temple herself and was happy to show us around and explain what many things symbolized.
If you visit a temple in Vietnam without a guide, it’s easy to overlook many of the subtle features. Almost every figure and color has a meaning to the family and/or religious beliefs.
Even walking through the entrance gates was a lesson. While the main elder is the only one permitted to enter through the middle gate, males would enter through the left and females to the right. Our guide joked “because girls are always right”.
As we approached the main temple, the 5 steps at the front entrance symbolize the 5 stages of life. While important animals decorated the temple roof. Most being mythical like the dragon, phoenix, and unicorn, the turtle and snake also made appearances.
A common color scheme throughout the temple was red and gold. Symbolizing luck and prosperity. And inside were the 5 things every temple alter needs; water, wood, gold, earth (sand) and fire (incense).
While it would have been a nice walk around the temple grounds no matter What, a guide is your teacher for the subtle symbols and meanings behind many unseen aspects.
Your guide will hand you the appropriate sum of money as a tip for visiting the temple. It was 5,000 Dong when I visited.
Stop 3 – Straw Mat House
Straw mats are a common sight around Vietnam as they have a number of uses. I for one, underestimated the amount of time and effort that goes into making these straw mats by hand. That’s what this third stop shows you, just how difficult it can be to make a seemingly simple item.
After a sweaty 15 minute ride in the blistering Vietnamese sun, we sat down to a chilled tea. We were then invited into a room to watch and talk to two ladies weaving straw mats together.
So efficiently they threaded a wooden spike through the alternating strands of straw and then compressing the new layer down so it was right against the other pieces of straw. They made it took easy. These two ladies, even though they were working at a fast and consistent pace, would take hours to make just one mat.
It was then my go. I did my best to replicate exactly what they were doing just moments before, and even though my addition didn’t look out of place to me, they almost definitely fixed mistakes that were obvious to them.
The straw mat factory on Kim Bong Village was a great insight into how much effort goes into making some items, even those I take for granted.
Your guide will hand you the appropriate amount of money to tip for visiting the straw mat manufacturing house. When I visited it was 5,000 Dong.
Stop 4 – Rice Cake and Noodle Factory
The final main stop on this guided tour of Kim Bong Village is a factory where rice is the main ingredient in producing noodles and thin rice cakes. Once again, it’s easy to underestimate the effort that goes into these flat cakes of pummeled rice.
After the rice is soaked for a few hours it is ground into a paste, technology has made this process much easier as it’s done by machine now, rather than by hand.
Using the rice husks for fire fuel, the paste is scooped out onto hotplates. Two coats on the grill and it’s left to simmer before being removed to cool.
What really puts this line of work into perspective, one kill of these cakes fetches around 10,000 Dong (USD). And these cakes are almost weightless. That’s a lot of work! But, on average, they make more than those weaving the straw mats at the last stop!
After having a go at pouring and cooking a rice cake or two – it was much simpler than threading straw mats, but I still feel like I messed up somehow!
After a small tasting of rice cakes and noodles, we said goodbye as the family’s grandmother looked on, consistently smiling.
This final stop is given the largest tip by your group. 25,000 Dong was the appropriate tip at the time I visited.
The end of the Kim Bong Village bike tour of Hoi An
Riding back through the quiet alleys and lanes of Kim Cam Island, back to the dock right next to the woodworking shop of Kim Bong Village. We boarded the ferry back to downtown Hoi An – there wasn’t much talking over the noisy motor, so taking in the scenery is the best thing to do.
The free bike tour of Hoi An and Kim Bong Village ended at a local coffee shop. My guide Thanh handed every member of our group (there were only 4 of us) a form to rate our tour and our guide.
Honestly, there was nothing bad I could say. I learned so much, I laughed a lot and met some interesting locals. There’s no better way to experience a country than with a local.
Before you say goodbye to your guide, please note they are not paid to give these tours. It is an obligation in their studies to complete 3 guided tours a month. A student is always appreciative of tips, and Thanh deserved it. I’m not sure of the proper tipping etiquette, but Thanh was somewhat reluctant to take 60,000 Dong from each of the 4 members of the tour.
What else should I expect from Hoi Ans free bike tour?
The free bike tour to Kim Bong Village does a lot of the lesser-known attractions in Hoi An. The narrow streets of this ancient port town can get busy and a bit overwhelming when trying to navigate through hordes of people and vehicles.
At the start of the tour, your guide will collect around 50,000 Dong from each rider. As the tour progresses, she will hand everyone the appropriate amount of money to tip for each stop along the tour.
The tour begins at 8am and you will be the elements of central Vietnam for 4 hours. The tour finishes around lunchtime.
My tour guide, Thanh, explained why it was customary for her to wear long jeans and a jacket, even though the temperature was hitting near 35C. It is seen as a sign of respect when visiting elders and their homes to cover as much skin as possible. I was in a shirt and shorts, and this is totally fine for tourists, but for a local Vietnamese girl, she has strict customs to abide by.
Protection from the weather, be that unrelenting heat or monsoon downpours. Weather can change in Vietnam quickly, especially bouts of heavy rain. There isn’t much protection from the weather on the bike tour throughout Hoi Ans outskirts, so be prepared.
Have you been on Hoi An’s free bicycle tour to Kim Bong Village? What did you think? Leave a comment below with any questions!
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Continue traveling Vietnam in these articles:
- Visit Hue’s abandoned water theme park – Ho Thuy Tien
- Trek through the Ho Chi Minh Trail at Phong Nha
- Don’t miss out on Marble Mountain – a day trip from Hoi An
Thanks for reading!
Happy and safe travels,
Ben – Horizon Unknown
