# Japanese Covered Bridge, Hoi An

> The Japanese Covered Bridge (Chùa Cầu) is a roofed timber bridge from around 1600 with a tiny shrine inside — Hoi An's emblem and the picture on the 20,000 VND note. Looking from outside is free at any hour; walking across uses one coupon of the Old Town ticket (80,000 or 120,000 VND), 9:00–11:00 and 15:00–22:00. Allow 20 minutes.

Web page: https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/japanese-covered-bridge

- City: [Hoi An](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an), Vietnam
- YesGo score: 40/100 (Yes, if nearby)
- Time on site: 20 min
- Opening hours: Crossing and shrine 9:00–11:00 and 15:00–22:00; outside view 24/7
- With kids: Fine with kids
- Ticket: One coupon of the Old Town ticket: 80,000 VND (bridge + 2 sites) or 120,000 VND (bridge + a museum + 3 sites)
- Bridge or temple: The ticket has one coupon for the Japanese Bridge or Quan Cong Temple, not both
- Children: Free under 16, per the Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center
- Crossing hours: 9:00–11:00 and 15:00–22:00; max 20 people on the bridge at once, so queues at busy times
- From outside: Free to look at and photograph from the banks, any time
- Location: West end of Tran Phu Street, crossing to Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street
- Payment: Cash in dong at ticket booths; foreign Visa and Mastercard work in bigger hotels and restaurants, not at the booths
- Coordinates: 15.87719, 108.32597
- Facts checked: 05.11.2026

## Key facts

- **One coupon** — of the Old Town ticket lets you walk across and into the shrine; viewing from outside is free (source: Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center; Da Nang Department of Tourism (danangfantasticity.com))
- **9:00–11:00, 15:00–22:00** — crossing hours; the bridge is closed to walkers in the middle of the day (source: Da Nang Department of Tourism (danangfantasticity.com))
- **20,000 VND** — the polymer note, issued in 2006, has the bridge on its reverse (source: English Wikipedia; Da Nang Department of Tourism)
- **c. 1600** — built with Japanese merchants' money in the late 16th or early 17th century; tradition says 1593 (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; English Wikipedia)
- **1653** — the year the small temple was added to the middle of the bridge (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; English Wikipedia)
- **1719** — Lord Nguyen Phuc Chu named it Lai Vien Kieu, "bridge for guests from afar" (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; English Wikipedia)
- **≈ 18 m** — long and about 3 m wide (source: English Wikipedia; Da Nang Department of Tourism)
- **Tran Vo Bac De** — the Taoist guardian god of the shrine; no Buddha is worshipped here (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; Da Nang Department of Tourism)
- **2 monkeys, 2 dogs** — wooden guardian statues, a pair at each end (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; English Wikipedia)
- **19 months** — of restoration, from December 2022 to the reopening on 3 August 2024 (source: DTiNews; Vietnam News)
- **1990** — listed as a National Historic-Cultural Relic of Vietnam (source: Hoi An Monuments Management Board heritage record; English Wikipedia)

> **Closed to walkers 11:00–15:00** According to Da Nang's tourism board, you can walk across the bridge and into the shrine **9:00–11:00 and 15:00–22:00** only. In between you can photograph it from the banks but not cross. No more than 20 people are let on at once, so there's often a short queue in the evening. The sweet spot is 9:00–10:00, before the day-trip coaches from Da Nang arrive.

## Is it free to walk across the Japanese Bridge?

Looking at it is free; walking across is not. Crossing the bridge and stepping into the shrine uses one coupon of the **Hoi An Old Town ticket**. The Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center sells two versions, **80,000 VND and 120,000 VND**, both valid for up to three days, and children under 16 go free.

The 80,000 VND ticket covers the Old Town, **the Japanese Bridge or Quan Cong Temple**, and two more sites of your choice. The 120,000 VND ticket covers the bridge or the temple, one museum and three more sites. Da Nang's tourism price table lists the same two amounts as the Vietnamese and the foreign-visitor price, so ask at the booth which one you're being sold.

The catch: the bridge and [Quan Cong Temple](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/quan-cong-temple) share a single coupon. To go inside both, you need a second ticket. Booths are at the entrances to the Old Town, including one right by the bridge. Pay in cash — booths and street stalls take dong only, while foreign Visa and Mastercard are fine in bigger hotels and restaurants.

One nice extra: the **Japanese Culture Gallery** at 06 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, a few steps from the bridge's west end, holds a Japanese tea ceremony daily at 9:30 and 16:30, included in the ticket. It fits neatly around the morning or evening crossing window.

## Best time to visit and photo spots

Go **early morning or at dusk**. The outside is accessible round the clock, so before 9:00 you can shoot it almost empty in soft light, then walk across as soon as it opens at 9:00. After dark the bridge and the lanes around it are lit up and at their most photogenic — and at their busiest.

The bridge's south side faces the river, and the shrine sits on its north side. The classic shot is from the canal bank and the riverside, or from a boat on the Thu Bon: boats wait along Bach Dang Street and at the jetties on An Hoi islet. Inside, the walkway is only about 3 m wide, so you won't get the whole bridge in frame from there, but the beams and carvings are close up.

Between 11:00 and 15:00 the bridge is shut to walkers and the light is harsh anyway. Spend that time in Old Town museums and houses or over lunch, and come back for the evening. On lantern nights — the 14th day of each lunar month — the area around the bridge is packed, so leave the tripod at the hotel.

## History of the Japanese Covered Bridge

The Vietnamese name, **Chùa Cầu**, means "bridge pagoda". It spans a canal just under 10 m wide that runs into the Thu Bon River, linking Tran Phu Street with Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street at the western edge of the Old Town. There's no exact build date: inscriptions and records point to the **late 16th or early 17th century**, and the date usually quoted is 1593.

Japanese merchants living in Hoi An paid for and designed it; local Vietnamese carpenters built it. In 1653, after the Japanese had left, the Chinese community added a small temple to the middle of the bridge, which is where the "pagoda" name comes from. In 1719 Lord Nguyen Phuc Chu gave it the name **Lai Vien Kieu** — "bridge for guests from afar" — and the lacquered board with those three characters still hangs over the shrine door.

The bridge is about 18 m long and 3 m wide, with a tiled roof, a timber deck and stone piers. It has been repaired so many times that almost all the timber has been replaced over the centuries; the stone foundations are the oldest part. Three repair years — 1763, 1817 and 1865 — are carved into the ridge beam, and the big 1986 restoration gave the roof and deck their present form. It became a National Historic-Cultural Relic in 1990.

## What to see on the bridge

- **The shrine of Tran Vo Bac De** — a tiny room on the north side with a standing wooden figure, about half a metre tall, of the Taoist guardian god, once asked to keep the town safe and settled. Despite the "pagoda" name, there's no Buddha here. Locals still burn incense on the 1st and 15th of each lunar month.
- **Monkeys and dogs** — four wooden statues, a pair at each end. Nobody is sure why they're there: one idea is that they record the years of construction in the zodiac, another that they were sacred animals. One dog is a 1956 replacement; the other three are much older.
- **The Lai Vien Kieu board** above the shrine door, dated 1719 and carrying Lord Nguyen Phuc Chu's seal.
- **Stone steles** set into the walls at either end, recording major repairs; the oldest is from 1817, the newest from 1917.
- **The Japanese Culture Gallery** at 06 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, by the west end, with the tea ceremony included in your ticket.
- **The 20,000 VND note** — pull one out of your wallet: the bridge is on the back, and holding it up in front of the real thing is Hoi An's favourite photo.

## The bridge after restoration

The latest major restoration started on **28 December 2022** and took 19 months, against a planned one year. The timber frame and roof were reworked: about 60% of the old wood and 30% of the roof tiles were kept, and damaged parts were replaced to match. The bridge was formally reopened on **3 August 2024**, during the Hoi An–Japan cultural exchange days.

Restored, it looks fresher than in older photos — paler timber, neater tiles. The visiting rules: one Old Town ticket coupon to cross, and no more than 20 people on the bridge at once, which Da Nang's tourism board puts down to its small size and limited load capacity.

## How to get to the Japanese Bridge

1. **From Da Nang Airport (DAD)** — about 30 km, 40–50 minutes by taxi or Grab. Hoi An has no airport or train station of its own. Grab takes cash or a linked foreign card; book in the app rather than with drivers at the exit.
2. **Get dropped at the edge of the walking zone** — Tran Hung Dao or Phan Chau Trinh Street. From 9:00 into the evening, cars and motorbikes aren't allowed into the Old Town.
3. **Walk 5–10 minutes** to the river and follow **Tran Phu Street** west to its very end: the street runs straight onto the bridge. From the [Central Market](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-central-market) the whole of Tran Phu takes about 10 minutes.
4. **Buy your ticket at the booth by the bridge** if you don't have one, then join the queue to cross — at 9:00 or after 15:00.
5. **From the night market** on An Hoi islet, cross the An Hoi footbridge to the north bank and walk a couple of minutes west along the river. The bridge is also the natural starting point for a west-to-east walk through [Hoi An Ancient Town](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-old-town).

## Is the Japanese Covered Bridge worth it?

Yes, but keep expectations in proportion. You need about **20 minutes**: walk across, look into the shrine, find the monkeys and dogs and take your photo from the bank. It's small inside, and if you expect a museum you'll be underwhelmed. What makes it worth it is that it's Hoi An's oldest and best-known landmark and the perfect place to start a walk through the Old Town.

Whether it deserves your coupon is another matter. If walking across and seeing the shrine matters to you, spend it here. If a photo is enough, shoot the bridge from outside for free and use the coupon on Quan Cong Temple — that way one ticket gets you both.

## Morning or evening?

|  | Morning, 9:00–11:00 | Evening, 15:00–22:00 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Crossing | Open | Open |
| Light | Soft, no lights | Floodlit after dark, lanterns around |
| Crowds | Lighter, before coach groups | Heaviest, often a queue |
| Nearby | Tea ceremony at 9:30 | Tea ceremony at 16:30, night market across the river |

Crossing hours are from Da Nang's tourism board; tea-ceremony times from the Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center. You can photograph the bridge from outside at any hour.

## Before you go

- [ ] Old Town ticket, or cash in dong to buy one
- [ ] Decided: bridge or Quan Cong Temple for this coupon
- [ ] Timing: 9:00–11:00 or after 15:00
- [ ] A 20,000 VND note for the photo
- [ ] Shoulders and knees covered — the shrine is still in use
- [ ] Grab pickup set on Tran Hung Dao or Phan Chau Trinh

## Historic Hoi An

Historic places in Hoi An rated by YesGo.

- [Hoi An Central Market](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-central-market) — YesGo score 44/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 45 min · Free entry
- [Japanese Covered Bridge](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/japanese-covered-bridge) — YesGo score 40/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · Old Town ticket: 80,000–120,000 VND
- [Fujian Assembly Hall](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/fujian-assembly-hall) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 30 min · Old Town ticket, 80,000–120,000 VND
- [Tan Ky Old House](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/tan-ky-old-house) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · One Old Town ticket coupon
- [Quan Cong Temple](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/quan-cong-temple) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · Old Town ticket, 80,000–120,000 VND
- [Hoi An Ancient Town](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-old-town) — YesGo score 34/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 3 h · 80,000–120,000 VND; streets free
- [My Son Sanctuary](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/my-son-sanctuary) — YesGo score 26/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 2 h 30 min · 150,000 VND

## A morning in the Old Town: bridge, house, hall, market

Start at the Japanese Bridge by 9:00, then Tan Ky House and the Fujian Assembly Hall, and finish at the Central Market. Add them to your route — YesGo fits in the timing and walks.

1. [Japanese Covered Bridge](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/japanese-covered-bridge) — YesGo score 40/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · Old Town ticket: 80,000–120,000 VND
2. [Tan Ky Old House](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/tan-ky-old-house) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 20 min · One Old Town ticket coupon
3. [Fujian Assembly Hall](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/fujian-assembly-hall) — YesGo score 39/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 30 min · Old Town ticket, 80,000–120,000 VND
4. [Hoi An Central Market](https://yesgo.io/vietnam/hoi-an/hoi-an-central-market) — YesGo score 44/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 45 min · Free entry

## Not to be confused with

The Japanese Covered Bridge is not the Golden Bridge at Ba Na Hills near Da Nang — the one held up by giant stone hands. The An Hoi bridge nearby is a plain footbridge to the night-market islet, with no roof and no ticket.

## Tips

- Be there at 9:00: the crossing has just opened and the Da Nang day-trippers haven't arrived.
- The bridge and Quan Cong Temple share one coupon. If you only want a photo of the bridge, take it from outside and spend the coupon on the temple.
- 11:00–15:00 the bridge is closed to walkers — use that time for museums or lunch.
- The ticket lasts up to three days: buy it the evening before and walk straight to the bridge in the morning.
- The shrine is still in use: keep your voice down and cover shoulders and knees.
- Bring a 20,000 VND note — the bridge is on the back.

## Questions

### Is it free to walk across the Japanese Bridge in Hoi An?

No. Crossing and the shrine use one coupon of the Old Town ticket, 80,000 or 120,000 VND. Looking at and photographing the bridge from outside is free.

### What are the Japanese Covered Bridge opening hours?

According to Da Nang's tourism board, you can cross 9:00–11:00 and 15:00–22:00. The outside is accessible 24/7.

### Can I visit the bridge and Quan Cong Temple on one ticket?

No. The ticket has a single coupon for one or the other; for both you need a second ticket.

### Do children need a ticket?

Under-16s go free, according to the Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center's visitor announcement.

### Is the Japanese Bridge on a banknote?

Yes — it's on the back of Vietnam's 20,000 VND polymer note, issued in 2006.

### What is inside the Japanese Covered Bridge?

A small Taoist shrine to Tran Vo Bac De, a guardian god, added in 1653, plus wooden monkey and dog statues at the two ends.

### When is the best time to photograph the bridge?

Before 9:00, when it's nearly empty, and at dusk when it's lit up. The classic angle is from the canal bank or a boat on the river.

### Is the Japanese Bridge open after the restoration?

Yes. Restoration began in December 2022 and the bridge reopened on 3 August 2024. Crossing uses a coupon, with up to 20 people at a time.

### How long do you need at the Japanese Bridge?

About 20 minutes to cross, see the shrine and take photos. Combine it with a walk east through the Old Town.

## How we checked

Ticket types, contents, three-day validity and free entry under 16 come from the Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center's announcement of 29.01.2026; the centre runs the Old Town. Da Nang's tourism price table (January 2026) lists the same 80,000 and 120,000 VND as Vietnamese and foreign-visitor prices, with child concessions by height (free under 1 m, 50,000 VND for 1–1.4 m); we use the centre's wording and suggest checking at the booth. Crossing hours of 9:00–11:00 and 15:00–22:00 come from the Da Nang tourism board's article on the bridge; guides give 9:00–22:00 or 24 hours, and nashaplaneta.net says crossing is free — we go with the official source. History was checked against the heritage record and English Wikipedia; 1593 is given as the traditional date, since the record itself says late 16th to early 17th century. Repair lists differ: the 1992 heritage record gives 1653, 1763, 1817, 1865, 1915, 1917 and 1986, while the centre's 2021 article gives 1763, 1817, 1875, 1917, 1962, 1986 and 1996, so we only name the years carved into the beam and the 1986 work that both share. The record says the Chinese community added the shrine in 1653; English Wikipedia credits the Japanese — we follow the record. National listing in 1990 is confirmed by the record, the centre's article and Wikipedia; the centre's Vietnamese page cites a 1985 ministry decision, while the record dates only its local protection to 1985, so we go with 1990 as most sources do. Restoration dates are from DTiNews and Vietnam News. The English core comes from English search results and related questions.

## Sources

- Hoi An World Cultural Heritage Conservation Center, Old Town visitor announcement of 29.01.2026 (hoianheritage.danang.gov.vn): ticket types, bridge or Quan Cong Temple, 3-day validity, free under 16, tea ceremony
- Hoi An Monuments Management Board, heritage record of Chùa Cầu (hoianheritage.danang.gov.vn): dates, shrine and deity, statues, 1719 board, repairs, listing
- Da Nang Department of Tourism (danangfantasticity.com): article on the bridge — crossing hours, 20-person limit, size, banknote; 2026 price table
- English Wikipedia: Japanese Bridge; Wikidata Q1091054
- Hoi An heritage centre, article "Japanese Covered Bridge in Hoi An – Renovations" (2021): repairs, listing, 2006 banknote
- DTiNews: restoration start on 28 December 2022; Vietnam News: 19 months of work, reopening on 3 August 2024
- nashaplaneta.net: ticket booths, views from the riverside and boats (unofficial)

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