March 1: Our van from Ninh Binh deposited us at Tuan Chau / Quang Ninh, the embarkation point for our Ha Long Bay cruise, but not without incident. Our driver had tried to pass on the right, got into trouble, and swerved wildly back into his lane, nearly losing control of the van. It was a bit hair-raising, to tell the truth. The countryside south of Hanoi and west of Ha Long Bay is very industrial and not at all scenic. As you get closer to the bay, the area is chock-a-block with new holiday townhomes designed to evoke the French colonial past. A few photos I pulled off the net show the scale and repetitiveness of these developments. The photo I took below of the Tuan Chau port shows that some of these developments are in financial trouble and remain unfinished. We had booked the Ocean Suite through Halong Bay Tours on the Hera Grand , a small wooden junk with only 11 cabins and no AstroTurf on her decks, the latter being my husband's non-negot...