With the course done and only the individual exam paper to write, my husband Luke and I left Hoi An. After staying almost three months there, it was quite a big deal to say goodbye. Local shop and restaurant owners had gotten accustomed to us coming by frequently and always greeted us with the same surprised yet smiling face, so as to say “are you still here?!”:)

I’ve really come to fall in love with Hoi An, it’s people, atmosphere, and food! Vietnam in general is quite cheap (especially if you’re from Scandinavia!), but Hoi An had such a vast array of wonderful and well-priced restaurants, that it will be very hard to match.

Hoi An has also been a perfect place to study, because of its size and the close proximity of everything you need. My class mates and I have been able to hang out with such ease, and a beautiful study center at the beach definitely didn’t hurt! I’ve felt so privileged to be able to go to the beach almost every day in certain periods, and for the wonderful people I’ve met. Special credit also goes to my Vietnamese neighbor, Minh, who was like a grandmother for me and Luke the entire time we lived there.

Of course our stay, and our Vietnamese experience in general, hasn’t been without its difficulties, but I would choose to relive it all over again, if I could.

When we’d said our goodbyes to Hoi An, next stop was the capital: Ha Noi.

It’s often very cheap to fly domestically, and only takes about an hour to reach either end of the country from Da Nang airport.

We knew that Ha Noi would be very different from Hoi An, but were still surprised when we got there. One of the quirks of the city that immediately stuck out was how all shops were organized in “quarters” and crammed in next to each other. There were quarters for toys, sewing, metals, fans, motors, bamboo-products, flowers, fabric and many, many more. It goes against every capitalist idea there is, and I’m not sure how each shop is able to survive (sometimes there were 6-7 identical shops rights next to each other). When we asked one of the staff from a hotel we stayed at, the answer was merely “Of course! That way they can help each other!”. …I still don’t get it:)

Ha Noi definitely has its own charm, and in part 2 I’ll reveal what craziness unfolds in the (very) early hours of the city!