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Delivery Guide
Updated August 2026 · By the LongDenViet workshop, Ho Chi Minh City
You want to buy lanterns in Hanoi. Fair enough — after a few days wandering the Old Quarter, a lantern feels like the obvious thing to pack. The trouble is the Old Quarter and Hoi An are two very different lantern towns, and it helps to know that before you go looking.
The short version: Hanoi has plenty of decorative lanterns for sale, but the traditional bamboo-and-silk kind that fold flat and come in eight shapes are a Hoi An craft. We make them there and ship next-day to Hanoi hotels — so you can still walk out with the real thing, just not from a Hanoi stall.
Hanoi is also a genuinely different climate from Hoi An or Ho Chi Minh City, which is worth knowing before you decide where a lantern is going to live. The capital runs a real four-season year — a cold, damp winter from roughly December to February, then a hot, humid summer from May onward. That does not change the lantern itself, but it does change where you would want to hang one, which the sizing section further down gets into.
Worth the walk, wrong product for what most travellers picture.
Hang Ma is the street everyone points you to. It is genuinely one of the Old Quarter's best walks — a narrow lane packed floor to ceiling with paper decorations, festival banners, red envelopes, and seasonal ornaments that change with the calendar. Around Mid-Autumn and Tet it gets loud, bright, and completely worth an evening.
What it is not, mostly, is a source of the bamboo-and-silk lanterns tied to Hoi An. Hang Ma leans paper decoration and festival supply. If a stall there is selling something billed as a "silk lantern," ask what it folds down to — the genuine Hoi An design collapses flat, and that single question filters out a lot of the printed synthetic copies.
The distinction matters most around Mid-Autumn and Tet, when Hang Ma is at its busiest and everything from star-shaped paper frames to plastic light-up toys gets billed loosely as a 'lantern.' None of that is wrong for what it is — festival decoration has its own tradition — it just is not the handmade silk piece most people mean when they search for a Vietnamese lantern to bring home.
Hoi An owns the craft the way Hang Ma owns the paper trade.
Silk lanterns are a Hoi An speciality for a simple reason: generations of workshops there refined the bamboo ribs, the silk stretch, and the collapsible frame into a small craft industry. Hanoi never developed that trade at the same scale. It has its own crafts — lacquer, ceramics, embroidery — just not this one.
That is fine. It just means the two most reliable ways to get a real one in Hanoi are: fly or take an overnight train down to Hoi An yourself, or have a Hoi An workshop ship it to your hotel while you keep your Hanoi itinerary intact. Most travellers on a tight schedule pick the second.
Distance is the honest reason the two crafts never merged. Hanoi to Hoi An is close to 800 kilometres by road, closer to a day's drive than an afternoon trip, and the overnight trains run to Da Nang rather than Hoi An itself. Nobody in Hanoi's Old Quarter is popping down for silk on a whim — which is exactly the gap next-day delivery closes.
The plain silk shapes share one price ladder — the painted and disc/umbrella styles run a little higher.
The round, inverted-garlic, banh u, diamond and custard-apple shapes all follow the same size-to-price ladder, since they use the same silk and bamboo-rib construction:
The flying-saucer (disc) shape runs 120,000 VND at 30 cm, 150,000 at 35 cm, 160,000 at 40 cm, 170,000 at 45 cm and 270,000 at 60 cm. The umbrella shape runs 140,000 at 30 cm, 160,000 at 35 cm, 180,000 at 40 cm, 210,000 at 45 cm and 320,000 at 60 cm. Hand-painted pieces cost more for the extra labour: 160,000 at 30 cm, 220,000 at 35 cm, 240,000 at 40 cm, 300,000 at 45 cm, 500,000 at 60 cm and up to 1,800,000 for a full metre.
In USD terms that is roughly 1–40 USD depending on size and style — we quote in VND and let you convert at whatever rate your card uses that day.
Old Quarter rooms run small — size the lantern to the space, not the other way round.
Most Old Quarter hotel rooms and rented flats are compact, with low ceilings and one window worth dressing. A 30–40 cm plain silk shape hung near that window or over a desk reads as a proper accent without swallowing the room. If you have a small balcony or a shared corridor space, the 45 cm size still folds flat for the flight home but carries more presence after dark.
Winter months change the calculation slightly. Hanoi's cold snap from December to February means a balcony lantern gets far less evening use than one hung just inside a window, where it still catches passing light without the silk taking on damp night air. Come summer, that logic flips — the balcony is where people actually sit out, so that is where the lantern earns its keep.
The longest domestic run we ship — worth seeing on the map rather than guessing at.
Hanoi is close to 1,700 kilometres from our Ho Chi Minh City workshop by road, so orders travel by domestic air freight rather than a truck route. It sounds like a long way, and it is, but the flight leg is fast enough that next-day delivery still holds for most orders placed before mid-afternoon.
Five steps, no shop visit required.
Timing your last night right
A lot of guests order on their second-to-last day in Hanoi so the lantern is waiting before they fly home. It folds flat into a suitcase, so there is no packing puzzle at checkout.
Fold flat, pack in five minutes, gone before your flight.
Prices run from 30,000 VND for a small 10 cm piece up to 900,000 VND for a full metre in plain silk; hand-painted and embroidered pieces cost more, up to 1,800,000 VND at the largest size — a modest spend either way for something that looks handmade because it is. Ours ship flat, so it slides between clothes rather than eating a whole packing cube.
See the shapes and colours on our English collection page, or message us directly if you want a wholesale quantity for gifts.
A few guests buy three or four at once rather than a single souvenir piece.
If you have rented a longer-term apartment in Hanoi rather than a hotel room, a single lantern often is not the plan — a small cluster near an entryway, or a short row along a balcony rail, reads more like a considered choice and less like a single tourist purchase left on a shelf.
A staggered cluster of three at slightly different drop heights is the arrangement most people settle on for an entryway or stairwell landing — it reads as deliberate without needing four or five pieces to pull off.
Handmade in Hoi An, folded flat and shipped to hotels across Hanoi the next day. Prices shown are retail; ask us for wholesale.
Can I buy real silk lanterns on Hang Ma Street in Hanoi?
Hang Ma is mostly paper decorations and festival supplies, not the bamboo-and-silk lanterns from Hoi An. If something there is labelled a "silk lantern," check whether it folds flat — the genuine design does, printed copies usually do not.
Is there a good lantern shop in Hanoi?
We do not have a shop in Hanoi — we are a lantern workshop, and our showroom is in Ho Chi Minh City. Most Hanoi travellers order on WhatsApp and get it delivered to their hotel the next day instead of hunting for a shop.
How fast can a lantern reach my Hanoi hotel?
Orders placed before mid-afternoon usually go out the same day and arrive the next day. Give us your hotel name and room number and reception will hold it if you are out.
Will a lantern fit in my suitcase for the flight home?
Yes. The traditional design folds flat to about the size of a dinner plate, so it slides between clothes in checked or carry-on luggage and opens back out in under a minute.
How much does a real silk lantern cost?
Plain silk shapes run from 30,000 VND at 10 cm up to 900,000 VND for a full metre. Disc and umbrella shapes sit a little higher, and hand-painted pieces run from 160,000 VND up to 1,800,000 VND at the largest size.
What size lantern suits a Hanoi hotel room?
Most Old Quarter rooms are compact, so a 30–40 cm plain silk shape near a window or desk reads well without crowding the space. Save 60 cm and up for a balcony, café or lobby.
Does Hanoi's cold winter affect where I should hang a lantern?
It affects usage more than the lantern itself. Through the cold, damp December-to-February stretch, hanging it just inside a window gets more evening use than a balcony spot, which comes into its own again once the warmer months arrive.
Can I order several lanterns for a rented Hanoi apartment?
Yes. A small cluster of three near an entryway or a short row along a balcony is a common choice for a longer stay. Tell us the count on WhatsApp and we can also quote wholesale for larger orders.
Continue reading
We hand-make bamboo-and-silk lanterns in Hoi An and ship them next-day to hotels across Hanoi, flat-packed for the flight home. Send us a photo on WhatsApp and we will match it.
Visit our showroom
262/1/93 Phan Anh, Phu Thanh Ward, Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City
Air-conditioned, one-on-one help, English spoken. Open daily 8 a.m.–9 p.m.