A king was given a magic sword, drove out an invading army, and a golden turtle rose from this lake and took it back. The lake is still called the Lake of the Returned Sword. A young local tells you the rest of it, standing on the red bridge after dark.
Real tours, real guests. Photographed by our own members.
Every visitor to Hanoi walks round Hoan Kiem Lake, photographs the red bridge and moves on. Almost none of them find out what any of it means, because by day the island is a queue and the temple is somewhere you shuffle through in ten minutes.
This tour is the opposite. One square kilometre and one story, told slowly, after the crowds have gone. The lake, the tower standing in the middle of it, the stone brush on the shore that writes on the sky, and the temple on the island where a giant turtle lies in a glass case. Every one of those is part of the same narrative, and the narrative is why Vietnamese people treat this water as the centre of the country rather than just the centre of a city.
It is also the most photographed place in Hanoi, and at night it is at its best. The bridge is lit from beneath, the Turtle Tower is a gold shape on black water, and there is room to stand still.
Everything here is within three hundred metres of everything else, so nothing is rushed. Tap any stop to read more about it.
Most visitors walk straight past the two things that explain everything else. Thap But, the Pen Tower, is a nine-metre stone tower raised in 1865 on a rocky mound beside the entrance, and its top is a writing brush standing upside down, tip to the sky. Three characters cut into the shaft read ta thanh thien: write on the blue sky. On the gateway just beyond it sits Dai Nghien, a stone inkstone carved in the shape of half a peach and held up by three toads. A brush and an ink slab, set at the door of a temple to the god of literature. Once you have seen them, the rest of the island makes sense.
The bright red wooden bridge to the island, built in 1865 by the scholar Nguyen Van Sieu, who in the same year also raised the Pen Tower, carved the Inkstone and built the pavilion on the far shore. One man, one year, four things that are now on every postcard of this city. The name means the place where morning sunlight rests, which is a strange thing to call a bridge you are crossing at nine at night, and it is one of the better questions to ask a guide. Lit from below, the whole thing appears twice.
The temple on the island honours two figures who would not obviously belong together: Tran Hung Dao, the general who defeated three Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century, and Van Xuong De Quan, the god of literature and examinations. A country that spent its history defending itself and testing its scholars decided both deserved the same island. It was made a special national relic in 2013. Inside there is incense, lacquer, and enough quiet at night to hear the water.
In a glass case inside the temple lies a giant softshell turtle nearly two metres long, which lived in this lake until January 2016. It was one of the last of its kind anywhere. A great many Hanoians believed it was the turtle from the legend, or descended from it, and when it died the news led the national bulletins. Standing in front of it at night, with the story fresh in your head, is a different experience from filing past it at two in the afternoon.
Two small structures most people photograph without knowing what they are. Dac Nguyet Lau, the Moon Contemplation Pavilion, is the gate at the island end of the bridge and is exactly what its name says: a place built for looking at the moon over water. Tran Ba Dinh, the Wave-Calming Pavilion, stands on the far side facing the open lake. Both are better at night than by day, which is true of very little else in this city.
Thap Rua stands on its own small island in the middle of the lake and nobody can walk to it. It is lit gold after dark and is the single most recognisable object in Hanoi. Your guide will walk you to the two or three spots on the shore where the reflection works properly, which is not where most people stand.
From Friday evening to Sunday night the roads around the lake close to traffic, and the whole area fills with families, buskers, children on hired electric cars and groups playing folk games on the pavement. It is the only time it is genuinely pleasant to walk in the middle of a Hanoi road. If your tour is on one of those evenings, this happens around you whether you plan it or not.
Everything is within a few hundred metres, so you can take as long as you like anywhere. Some guests want the whole legend and every pavilion; others want twenty minutes inside the temple and two hours walking round the lake talking. Both are a normal evening.
You can also do the entire tour for nothing. The ticket is only needed to pass through Dac Nguyet Lau onto the temple island; the Pen Tower, the Inkstone, the Turtle Tower and the whole lakeside are free to walk. Tell your guide if you would rather stay outside, and the evening costs you nothing at all.
One thing worth knowing. This tour stays at the lake. If you want the 36 trading streets that begin on the other side of it, that is the hanoi old quarter walking tour, which can also run in the evening. And if you want a ticketed light show rather than a story told beside the water, the Temple of Literature night tour is a different kind of evening altogether.
The temple closes at ten at weekends, so both sessions can go inside. The difference is how much room you have.
Most guests choose this, and it is the safer option if the temple matters to you.
Thirty minutes is enough to see the temple but not to linger in it.
Send your dates and your preferred start time. We reply by email within 24 hours with the name of your guide.
This is the question we are asked most, so it is worth answering plainly.
Our guides are not paid a wage. They join this club to practise English with visitors, and an evening spent telling a story out loud in a second language, to someone who keeps interrupting with questions, is the best practice there is. You get the story. They get the evening.
There is no commission, no shop stop, and no upsell at the end. The only money you might spend is the temple ticket, which goes to the site, and you can skip even that. Tips are optional.
| Item | Price per person |
|---|---|
| Ngoc Son Temple ticket, adult | 50,000 VND · about $1.90 |
| Students with a card | 15,000 VND |
| Children under 15 | Free |
| Pen Tower, Inkstone, Turtle Tower, lakeside | Free |
| Iced tea or an ice cream on the walk | 5,000 to 30,000 VND |
You also cover your guide’s ticket if you both go in. One traveller with one guide comes to about 100,000 VND, roughly $3.80 for the whole evening. This is the cheapest of our night tours by a wide margin, and if you decide to stay outside the temple gate it costs nothing at all.
Not a tour company employee. Your guide is a young Hanoian who joined a volunteer club to practise English with visitors, and who trained for two and a half months before being allowed to lead anyone anywhere.
Some are still at school or university. Some graduated years ago and kept coming back. Some fit tours around a full-time job at a company in the city. What they share is that they grew up here, and that nobody pays them a wage to be here with you.
There is no ticketed show and no audio guide to fall back on. An evening at the lake is one person telling a story out loud for three hours, which is the hardest thing we ask a guide to do in English and the reason they volunteer for it.
Every Hanoian has an opinion about the turtle: whether it was the one from the legend, whether others are still in the water, what it meant when it died in 2016. Ask yours. It is the question that produces the most interesting answers.
This is the easiest meeting point of any tour we run, because the lake is the Old Quarter’s front door. If your hotel is inside the Old Quarter your guide comes to the lobby. Otherwise we meet at the Pen Tower or by the fountain on the north shore, and your guide sends a photo of the exact spot beforehand.
50,000 VND per adult, about $1.90, bought at the gate in cash. Students with a card pay 15,000 VND and children under 15 are free. You also cover your guide’s ticket, so one traveller and one guide comes to about 100,000 VND. You only need a ticket to pass the gate onto the temple island: the Pen Tower, the Inkstone, the Turtle Tower and the whole lakeside are free.
At weekends, yes. Monday to Thursday it closes at seven in the evening. Friday, Saturday and Sunday it stays open until ten, which is why this tour runs on those three nights and why the roads around the lake are closed to traffic on the same evenings.
Take 8:00pm if going inside the temple matters to you: it gives you two hours before it closes, with time for the turtle and both pavilions. Take 9:30pm if you want the lake as it quietens and better photographs; you will still get inside, but with about half an hour rather than two.
Yes. Ngoc Son is a working temple with people praying in it whatever the hour. Cover your shoulders and knees, no tank tops, no shorts or skirts above the knee. There is no dress code for the lakeside itself.
In the fifteenth century, Le Loi was given a magic sword and used it to drive out an occupying army. Afterwards, while he was on a boat on this lake, a golden turtle rose from the water and took the sword back to its owner, the Dragon King. Hoan Kiem means returned sword. Your guide will tell you the version they were told as a child, which is usually better than the one in the guidebooks.
Yes. A giant softshell turtle that lived in the lake until January 2016 is preserved in a glass case inside the temple, nearly two metres long. It was one of the last of its species anywhere. Many Hanoians believed it was connected to the legend, and its death was national news.
A matched pair at the entrance, both raised in 1865 by the scholar Nguyen Van Sieu. The Pen Tower is nine metres of stone topped by a writing brush standing upside down, with three characters on the shaft reading write on the blue sky. The Inkstone is carved as half a peach and held up by three toads. A brush and an ink slab, at the door of a temple to the god of literature.
Completely. Van Mieu is a ticketed light show with 3D projection, on fixed nights, costing 299,000 VND. This is one person telling you a story beside a lake, for the price of a 50,000 VND ticket you can also skip. One is a production; the other is a conversation. Guests who have time often do both.
Send your dates and your preferred start time. We reply by email within 24 hours with the name of your guide.
The other night tour: a ticketed light show inside Vietnam’s first university.
The 36 trading streets that begin on the other side of this lake.
An evening version exists, and it starts three minutes from this bridge.