After finishing ten weeks of lectures in Hoi An, it was time for our three-week home exam. Where you write this exam is optional, some are travelling home to Norway right away and some stay in Vietnam or somewhere else in Asia to write it. Me and seven other girls decided we wanted to write the exam in the North of Vietnam, so we ended up renting an Air-bnb in Hanoi (the capitol) while working on the task. After almost two weeks with intensively writing the exam we decided to take a bus from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is one of the most famous attractions in Vietnam and is a part of the UNESCOs World Heritage List. In my opinion is very much worth visiting.

The first night in Ha Long Bay we took a boat to one of the islands called Cat Ba and rented a hostel there. The island was beautiful and very calm, we even got to hike to a mountaintop a few meters from the hostel and watch the sun go down. The day after we had booked a full day tour on a boat including both swimming, kayaking, hiking on the monkey mountain and lunch on the boat. All in all, this is one of the best days I`ve had in Vietnam. Firstly, Ha Long Bay is beautiful just to watch, after a while of just boating we went swimming in and under hidden caves in the mountains. After the swimming we took the boat a little further and were placed into kayaks. This was exciting because we discovered a hidden lagoon, which were impossible to reach with the big boat we arrived in. At the end of the day we were hiking up a mountain called Monkey mountain. We got to see the monkeys close by, and the top of the mountain gave an amazing view over the whole bay. This day was really a relief after the past week with exam-writing and a big highlight in the Vietnam experience.

-Julie-