Naklua & Wong Amat

North of the main drag, Naklua is the older, more Thai part of town, and Wong Amat is its beach — a calmer, cleaner stretch of sand backed by upmarket hotels and condos. Together they're where people go for a quieter, more grown-up Pattaya.

It's the setting for one of the area's great landmarks, the all-teak Sanctuary of Truth, alongside a good run of restaurants. Close enough to the centre for a night out, far enough to sleep.

Do not base yourself here if you want to be in the middle of things. Naklua is deliberately laid back and quiet, and the ten-minute songthaew ride into the centre is the price of that — fine if you planned for it, irritating if you did not.

The thing that is genuinely better up here than anywhere else in the city is the view from above. The condos and hotel rooms in this area often look straight across Pattaya Bay to Koh Larn and round to the port at Laem Chabang, which is a considerably better outlook than a room in the centre gets for the same money.