Pattaya City Sign

This is a photo stop, and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Big letters spelling out Pattaya sit on a hillside above the city, and behind them the whole sweep of the bay opens up: the beach curve, the high-rises, the Gulf going flat and grey-blue towards the horizon. You get maybe fifteen minutes out of it. But it's the one view that makes sense of how big and how coastal Pattaya actually is, which you'd never work out from street level.

Go at sunset or after dark if you can. The city lights come up across the water and the letters are lit, so the pictures are far more interesting than the midday version, when the haze flattens everything and the heat off the concrete is unpleasant. Early morning is the other good window, quieter and cooler, and worth choosing in the hot months. Skip the middle of the day entirely.