PTH Phan Thiet, Vietnam Bright lights - who knows?
 

Greetings! Phan Thiet is on the southeast coast of Vietnam. I'm a B777 Captain on a US airline and it was my first flight in this part of the world . I flew from HKG to SIN at night and noticed very bright white "squares" (huge fields of land) lit up. I assume the lights are LED because of their "whiteness". The entire area of Phan Thiet, Vietnam glows on the horizon. What do you suppose? Fish farms? Thank you!

From what I was told these are "Dragon Fruit" farms. The fruit needs a lot of light to grow.

Indeed.

Travelling from HCM to Phan Thiet by train, there are many fields of Dragon Fruit trees with many light bulbs attached.

[IMG]http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/w...Untitled_1.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks very much.

I believe they are green houses, like you see across europe at night.


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No, not green houses.

As passy777 said, they are Dragon Fruit orchards. I've driven to Phan Thiet from Saigon many times and the orchards are always lit up at night time, with strings of ordinary incandescent bulbs, just like the picture above.

Of course, offshore you will see hundreds of very bright lights (mercury vapour?) on the squid fishing boats. So many that sometimes you think you are flying over land. Each boat has an array of lights down each side. These could be mistaken for green houses, if you weren't aware that they were boats.

Further north, around Da Lat, there are lots of green houses for flowers, but in my experience, the HKG-SIN tracks don't go near Da Lat.

It sounds like this area might be an interesting destination for a vacation. Thanks to all. Smooth rides-

here are some pictures
 

Are these 100% dragon fruit? Any updates?
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Having been to Phan Thiet many times, this is definitely the dragon fruit small holdings. Very popular farming amongst the locals, although the price has dropped significantly in recent years. Phan Thiet has a huge fishing fleet, and quite a big factory producing fish oil...quite smelly with half a mile of the factory. Hundreds of boats are off the coast at night time as already mentioned.

Mui Ne is the resort town just a couple of miles along the coast from Phan Thiet. There are many very nice hotels. My favourite being Bamboo Village. https://bamboovillageresortvn.com

Mui Ne is generally quite quiet. Nice beaches, although it gets quite windy. Good for kite surfers. It used to have lots of Russians there on holidays, but these days it is more in favour with Europeans since the Russian economy tanked. But even in high season, its v quiet. The exception is the Vietnamese public holidays, where it becomes very busy. It's about 4-5 hrs drive from HCM city. The roads are getting better, but it still single carriageway for much of it. Never look out the front window as a passenger unless you want an increase in blood pressure.

In general Vietnam is absolutely nothing like Thailand. Very pleasant.