Travel & Shopping in Saigon

Where to Buy Lanterns in Ho Chi Minh City: Lantern Street, Markets, and a Showroom Worth Knowing

Updated June 2026 · By the LongDenViet workshop, Ho Chi Minh City

Luong Nhu Hoc Street sits in District 5, the Cho Lon area that is Saigon's Chinatown. The street itself is short — a few hundred metres — but in the weeks approaching the Mid-Autumn Festival (usually late September or early October) it transforms. Lanterns hang from awning to awning on both sides. The colours are extraordinary. Go in the evening when everything is lit and take as many photos as you like.

The stock at peak season is dense. You will find paper star lanterns, plastic carp lanterns, LED toys for children, large round silk pieces, and everything in between. The range is seasonal and skewed toward Mid-Autumn celebration items — lots of the inventory is exactly what Vietnamese families buy for children to carry in the procession: light, cheap, festive. That is not a criticism. It is just useful to know if you are looking for year-round décor rather than a festival prop.

Handmade bamboo-and-silk lanterns are also available here. The challenge is that quality varies. On a busy street, in the heat, with dozens of stalls, it can be hard to open pieces, compare ribs, or have a proper conversation about size and colour. But if you know what to look for — firm dry bamboo, real silk with a visible grain, even ribs when open — you can find good pieces.

Because so much of the peak-season stock is aimed at the Mid-Autumn procession trade, a good portion of what you see is not really built for long-term hanging at all. Paper star lanterns and toy carp lanterns are made to survive one evening of a child carrying them around, not months on a hook exposed to weather. If your goal is home décor rather than a festival memento, it is worth walking past the toy stalls to the handful that sell the sturdier bamboo-and-silk pieces further down the street.

District 10 borders Cho Lon and has additional wholesale and retail streets dealing in decorative goods, including lanterns. The crossover with craft suppliers serving restaurants and event planners means you occasionally find better-quality pieces here at fairer prices, though it takes more browsing.

The craft and gift sections of Ben Thanh Market, Saigon Square, and a handful of boutique souvenir shops in District 1 all carry Vietnamese lanterns. Stock in these places tends to be smaller format, targeted at tourists, and priced accordingly. Good for picking up one or two small ones. Less practical if you need several matching pieces for a project or event.

Year-round, the most reliable option for handmade, workshop-quality lanterns in a range of sizes and colours is a dedicated showroom — which brings us to the next section.

During the two to three weeks before Mid-Autumn, Luong Nhu Hoc is genuinely crowded. Very crowded. The street is narrow, the footpath is shared with parked motorbikes, and the heat in September and October is no joke. Factor in 30-plus degrees and high humidity and the romantic lantern-street stroll can quickly become a sweaty push through a crowd. This is not a reason to skip it. It is a reason to go in the early evening, move slowly, and not plan it as the last activity of a long day.

Outside Mid-Autumn the street quietens dramatically. Some stalls close for weeks at a time. The selection contracts to what the permanent shops keep in stock, which is smaller and mostly aimed at wholesale buyers rather than tourists. If you visit Saigon in April or July and want lanterns, Luong Nhu Hoc is a gamble.

Bargaining is expected at the street stalls. The first price you hear is rarely the selling price. A polite counter-offer, a smile, and some patience usually land you somewhere reasonable. That said, if silk-quality work is what you are after, paying close to the asking price at a stall that clearly makes its own pieces is often fair.

The street and the showroom serve two different trips, really. Below is the honest comparison — which is not the same as saying one is better, just that they solve different problems.

We are LongDenViet, a lantern workshop and showroom based in Tan Phu District. We make traditional aged-bamboo and real-silk lanterns in eight shapes, fourteen colours, and sizes from 10 cm to over a metre. Everything in the showroom is in stock, on display, and available to handle.

The difference between buying here and buying on the street is mostly about pace and information. At the showroom, you sit down. We talk through what you actually need — are you decorating a room, a restaurant, a terrace? Indoor or outdoor? What ceiling height? Budget? We then pull the relevant pieces and you compare them side by side, lit, at room temperature. No hurry, no crowd noise.

A few specifics worth knowing: the showroom is air-conditioned (important from May through October), we speak English, and there is no pressure to buy anything. We also offer COD and same-city home delivery, so you do not have to carry a box across Saigon on a motorbike. If you are flying out in the next few days, we can arrange international shipping via DHL or FedEx — the lanterns fold flat, so freight costs less than you would expect.

Fixed, catalogue pricing is one of the biggest differences between the showroom and a street stall at peak season, when a busy stallholder has less patience to negotiate. Here is our plain silk lantern price ladder by size, the same range you would compare against a market quote.

Stock is full year-round, not just at Mid-Autumn. Come in February, June, any month — the range is the same. Browse our English page to see shapes, colours and sizes before you visit, or message us ahead of time so we can have your options ready. Prefer to build one yourself? We also run a lantern making class — in Hoi An, or in Saigon by appointment.

Most visitors to Luong Nhu Hoc grab whatever glows brightest under the string lights, which works fine for a single souvenir. It works less well for a specific spot in a Saigon apartment or shophouse, where ceiling height, balcony width and table size all narrow down what actually looks right once it is hanging in daylight rather than festival lighting.

Saigon apartments with lower ceilings — common in older District 1, 3 and 5 buildings — suit the flying-saucer and umbrella shapes, since neither drops far below the fixture. Shophouse balconies and terraces, which are common further out in Tan Phu, Binh Thanh and Thu Duc, have the height for a round or garlic-shaped piece to hang with room to breathe.

For restaurants and cafes along busy Saigon streets, several mid-size lanterns in a row read better from the pavement than one large piece — the eye picks up repetition faster than scale, especially past dusk when headlights and neon are competing for attention. We cover cluster and row layouts in more depth in our restaurant and cafe lighting guide.

Colour choice matters more in Saigon than it might elsewhere, simply because of how much artificial light already competes for attention on any given street. A single warm amber or red lantern can get lost against neon signage and headlights. Two or three lanterns of the same warm tone, hung close together, read as a deliberate feature rather than one small point of colour in a busy streetscape — this is one reason clusters tend to outperform single pieces for street-facing storefronts.

Indoors, the calculation flips. A dining room or living room with controlled lighting can carry a single striking piece — a large hand-painted lantern over a table, say — because there is no competing glow to drown it out. This is the kind of judgement call that is much easier to make sitting in an air-conditioned showroom with a lantern actually lit in front of you than guessing from a photo on a phone screen in the middle of a crowded street.

The showroom is at 262/1/93 Phan Anh, Phu Thanh Ward, Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City. Tan Phu is west of the centre — a Grab car from Ben Thanh Market takes about 20–40 minutes depending on traffic. Enter the address directly into Grab or Google Maps.

We are open daily from around 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Walk-ins are welcome. That said, if you message us the day before — or even a few hours ahead — we can pull out the relevant sizes and shapes for your project, which saves everyone time. Most consultation visits run 30 to 45 minutes.

• WhatsApp: +84 905 151 701 — quickest for international visitors
• Zalo / hotline: +84 989 778 247
• Email: sales@longdenviet.com

A quick message saying "I am visiting on [date], I need [roughly what]" is enough. We will confirm and have things ready. If you have seen something specific on our website or on the lantern street that you want to match, send us a photo — we can usually identify the shape and tell you whether we have it in stock.

Payment is cash or bank transfer. COD is available for delivery orders within Ho Chi Minh City.

Frequently asked questions

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