Sica Alley Hoi An – The Lane Named After a French Liquor Company

Local guide · August 2026

People in Hoi An call an alley a kiet, and among the hundreds of them threading through the Old Town, Sica Alley has the strangest name of all. Not a founding craftsman, not a well, not a temple — four letters left behind by a French company that vanished from Vietnam more than seventy years ago. We followed that name all the way into the colonial company registers, and the story turned out to be far longer than the eighty-odd metres of lane it belongs to.

№ 01Where Sica Alley is

Sica Alley opens off 56 Le Loi Street, on the stretch between Phan Chau Trinh and Tran Phu, right beside Hoi An Communal House — the temple locals know as Dinh Ong Voi, the Elephant Shrine. From the mouth of the lane the path runs west into the belly of the block, squeezing between ochre walls, then feeds into the tangle of alleys behind the main streets.

On the paperwork: since 1 July 2025, when Quang Nam province merged into Da Nang City, this whole quarter sits in Hoi An ward, Da Nang City. Before that it was Minh An ward, Hoi An City, Quang Nam.

One sign that the lane has outgrown neighbourhood gossip: Google Maps now labels it separately as “Kiet Sica (Sica Alley)”, listed as a tourist attraction rather than an unnamed stretch of paving. House numbers inside run in the 56/… format — the chicken rice place deep in the lane is 56/16 Le Loi, meaning the sixteenth door in from the street.

№ 02What Sica actually stands for

Nearly every article about Hoi An stops at one sentence: Sica Alley is where the French had a liquor warehouse called SICA. True enough, but it leaves out the interesting part — what was SICA?

We went digging in the French colonial business archives and found a match that lines up on every detail: the Société Industrielle et Commerciale de l’Annam, officially abbreviated S.I.C.A., roughly “the Industrial and Commercial Company of Annam”.

• Founded in 1907 as a joint-stock company.
• Registered business: the manufacture and sale of alcohol — in the original, fabrication et vente d’alcool.
• Operating headquarters in Tourane — today’s Da Nang — on the quai Courbet along the Han River.
• Factories in Quang Nam. A 1943 listing records two plants in Quang Nam province, alongside Quang Binh (2), Quang Tri (1), Thua Thien (2), Quang Ngai (1) and Binh Dinh (2).
• Staff in the Faifo area. The 1936 Annam electoral roll includes a district literally called “Circonscription électorale de Faifo — Quangngai” listing SICA employees. Faifo was the European name for Hoi An.

Put it together: a French liquor company based in Da Nang, with plants and staff in Quang Nam and Faifo, needed storage and a distribution point in the trading port itself. A lane just off Le Loi, running deep into the block yet still connected to a main street, is close to the perfect place for a warehouse.

№ 03The liquor warehouse and the alcohol war in Annam

To understand why a warehouse mattered enough to name a lane after, you have to zoom out a little.

In the early twentieth century alcohol was one of the three great revenue pillars of the colonial administration, alongside opium and salt. The giant of the trade was the Société française des distilleries de l’Indochine, founded in 1901 by Auguste-Raphaël Fontaine, which held the monopoly on distilling rice alcohol in Tonkin and northern Annam for three decades. Fontaine alcohol was what Vietnamese villagers of the period called ruou ty — the licensed liquor each village was obliged to buy by quota.

S.I.C.A. was born into that world, and the French sources describe it in exactly those terms: presented as an example of a competitor to the Distilleries of Indochina. In 1912 Governor-General Sarraut had to sign a special decree allowing SICA to import industrial alcohol into Annam up to half the authorised annual output of its six establishments. The competition did not last. By 1920 SICA was already a subsidiary, and in 1954 the Fontaine group raised its stake from 14 percent to more than half.

The end of SICA is also the end of the warehouse. A 1954 financial bulletin records that the company’s plants had been entirely destroyed, leaving it to resell alcohol produced elsewhere. Nine years into the First Indochina War, the name disappeared from the economic map of Vietnam.

What survived, oddly enough, was a lane. The warehouse is gone, the company is gone, but people in Hoi An still call the place Sica Alley — a French name that outlived a war, a change of street names and the town’s inscription as a World Heritage Site, purely because nobody ever bothered to stop saying it.

The warehouse disappeared three generations ago. The name stayed, because it never occurred to anyone to change it.— Anh Khoa, Hoi An local

№ 04Before dawn, 2 September 1966

This is the part we believe no travel article has told. Sica Alley appears by name in a research paper published by the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation, in a study of the communal house, quoting the memoir of Dinh Van Loi of the Hoi An urban commando unit.

The setting: Dinh Ong Voi was guarded at night. For Vietnam’s National Day on 2 September 1966, the commando team decided to raise the flag of the National Liberation Front on the communal house flagpole. Nguyen Thi Sim was given the job of sewing it — 1.2 by 2 metres.

1. Around 3 a.m.Three men — Tran Do, Dinh Van Loi and Bui Son Thanh — set out and were stopped by a military police patrol. All three were in shorts and T-shirts, pretending to be out for early exercise. Fortunately they had not yet collected the flag or the grenade.
2. Checking the groundAfter going through the motions of exercising in the courtyard and confirming no guards were present, Loi ran back for the flag and the grenade.
3. Splitting the lookoutsFrom the memoir, verbatim: “Comrade Tran Do kept watch on Pho Tung alley, comrade Thanh kept watch on SICA alley and Le Loi street.” The lane you are about to walk into was one of the two lookout posts that night.
4. Flag plus grenadeOnce the flag was tied on, they hung an M26 grenade beneath it before hoisting — so that nobody would dare pull it down in a hurry.
5. 7 a.m.Only then did the authorities notice. They surrounded the communal house, closed the road and blocked traffic.
6. 10 a.m.Engineers finally arrived to sweep for mines and take the flag down. It had flown over the roof for seven hours in the middle of town.

The detail Old Town obsessives will enjoy most: “Pho Tung alley” in that memoir is also still there. It is the lane at 51/7 Phan Chau Trinh where Pho Tung still serves breakfast every morning. Two alleys in one page of a wartime memoir, both still open sixty years later — one selling noodle soup, the other carrying the name of a French liquor firm.

Source: the study “Hoi An Communal House in History”, Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation, quoting the memoir of Dinh Van Loi.

№ 05What is in Sica Alley today

Do not expect a museum. Sica Alley is now an ordinary residential lane of the Old Town: ochre walls, wooden shutters, cables strung overhead, potted plants by the doorsteps, motorbikes tilted against the wall to leave a path. Its appeal lies elsewhere.

If you are after grandeur, this is not it. If you are after the specific sensation of stepping from a street packed with visitors into complete quiet within ten paces, Sica Alley delivers it about as cleanly as anywhere in town, for the simple reason that hardly any tourists think to turn in.

№ 06Why the Old Town has so many alleys

There are real numbers behind this. Research by Tran Thi Le Xuan of the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation puts figures on the Old Town alley system:

The reason for that density is thoroughly practical. Hoi An was a trading port. The old shophouses are tube houses — narrow frontage, great depth — and goods coming off the river needed a route to the storerooms at the back. The alleys served as trade routes, as fire escapes and as ventilation between tightly packed rows. When roads replaced boats, the lanes simply stayed where they were, and became the thing visitors now hunt for with a camera.

That is also why Hoi An alleys are named after whatever was actually there: Ba Le well alley has the ancient Cham well with the sweetest water in town, Nhi Trung alley has a mossy well sitting square in the middle of the path, Am Hon shrine alley has the shrine, and Sica Alley had the liquor warehouse. Alley names here work as a shared memory map. If you want to walk a few more of them, we cover the best in our guide to the hidden alleys of Hoi An.

№ 07Photographing the lane: when and how

Hoi An alleys are narrow and high-walled, so the light inside changes fast through the day. A few things we have learned taking guests down them:

• 6:30 to 8:00 is the genuine golden window. The sun is still low, the ochre walls warm up without blowing out, and — more importantly — there is nobody in your frame.
• 16:30 to 17:30 is the second option. Soft light, but by then people are moving about, parking bikes, cooking. Beautiful in a lived-in way rather than an empty one.
• Avoid 11:00 to 14:00. Overhead sun cuts hard bright and dark bands across the path and the files are almost unsalvageable.
• Shoot from the mouth of the lane inwards for the leading-line effect. Two walls converging is the single strongest composition these alleys offer.
• Go vertical rather than horizontal. The lane is tall and tight; a portrait frame tells the story far better.
• Watch for the wooden shutters and ventilation grilles. That detail is what separates an Old Town alley from any yellow wall anywhere else.
• Do not write off rainy days. Wet ochre goes several shades deeper, and the paving reflects late-afternoon light beautifully.

№ 08People live here — a short code of conduct

The key difference between Sica Alley and a heritage site: nobody sells you a ticket, but nobody invited you either. The whole lane is the front yard of the families living along it.

To be blunt: a number of Hoi An alleys have started putting up no-photography signs or stringing ropes across the entrance because visitors pushed too far. Sica Alley is still relaxed about it, and the only way it stays relaxed is if people behave as though they are walking past someone’s home — because they are.

№ 09What to combine it with

Sica Alley takes 15 to 20 minutes. It works best as one stop in a morning walk rather than a destination in itself.

№ 10Getting there and parking

Sica Alley sits on Le Loi, inside the Old Town vehicle restriction zone. That makes it different from most places we write about: during restricted hours you cannot ride up to the alley mouth. Check the current schedule in our guide to Hoi An Old Town vehicle restriction hours.

1. From the Japanese Covered BridgeWalk east along Tran Phu for 400 to 500m, then turn left onto Le Loi. Seven or eight minutes. More on the Japanese Covered Bridge if it is your first visit.
2. From Hoi An MarketThe closest approach — a few hundred metres along Tran Phu and up Le Loi.
3. By motorbikePark at one of the lots around Phan Chau Trinh, Hoang Dieu or Nguyen Hue and walk in. Expect 5,000 to 10,000 VND. See how the Old Town ticket and kiosks work if you plan to visit the ticketed monuments afterwards.
4. By carNot advisable. Park on the outer ring and continue on foot or by bicycle.
5. From Da NangAbout 30km, 45 to 60 minutes by motorbike along Vo Nguyen Giap and Lac Long Quan, then park outside the Old Town and walk.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Sica Alley in Hoi An?

Sica Alley opens off 56 Le Loi Street, between Phan Chau Trinh and Tran Phu, right beside Hoi An Communal House, known locally as Dinh Ong Voi. The administrative address today is Hoi An ward, Da Nang City; before 1 July 2025 it was Minh An ward, Hoi An City, Quang Nam province.

What does the name Sica mean?

Sica comes from a French liquor warehouse that once stood in this lane. Cross-checked against colonial business records, S.I.C.A. stands for Société Industrielle et Commerciale de l Annam, a French alcohol company founded in 1907 with operating headquarters in Tourane, now Da Nang, factories in Quang Nam and staff in the Faifo district, Faifo being the old European name for Hoi An.

Do you need a ticket for Sica Alley?

No. Sica Alley is a residential lane, not one of the ticketed heritage monuments of Hoi An Ancient Town. You can walk in freely, there is no charge and nobody checks tickets.

What is the best time to visit Sica Alley?

Between 6:30 and 8:00 in the morning, when the light is still low and the lane is almost empty. The second-best window is 16:30 to 17:30. Avoid roughly 11:00 to 14:00, when overhead sun creates harsh bands of light and shadow along the path.

Is there anywhere to eat in Sica Alley?

Yes. Com ga Huong sits at 56/16 Le Loi, deep inside the lane. It only opens from around 16:30 and does not serve breakfast, and it holds roughly 3.4 out of 5 across more than 80 Google reviews.

What is the difference between kiet and hem?

There is none. Kiet is the local word used in Hoi An and Quang Nam for a narrow alley, while hem is the more general Vietnamese term. Both kiet Sica and hem Sica refer to the same lane. Hoi An people rarely use the northern word ngo.

How wide are the alleys in Hoi An Old Town?

According to research by the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation, Old Town alleys are usually 1 to 2 metres wide, with the narrowest around 0.7 metres. The stretch between Tran Phu and Nguyen Thai Hoc alone contains 20 alleys connecting the two streets.

Can you ride a motorbike into Sica Alley?

No, and you should not try. The lane is very narrow and it lies inside the Old Town vehicle restriction zone. Park at one of the lots around Phan Chau Trinh, Hoang Dieu or Nguyen Hue for 5,000 to 10,000 VND and walk in.

Updated August 2026. Sources used in this guide: the study “Hoi An Communal House in History” by the Hoi An Centre for Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation, quoting the memoir of Dinh Van Loi; the alley survey by Tran Thi Le Xuan published in the Quang Nam – Da Nang provincial press; and the file on the Société Industrielle et Commerciale de l Annam in the French colonial business archives. The link between the alley name and the S.I.C.A. company is our own inference from those sources rather than a direct citation, and we say so in the article. This page contains an affiliate link: if you book through it we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Sica Alley is a residential lane — please keep noise down and respect the privacy of the families who live there.