Phra Tamnak Mountain Viewpoint

This guide to the Phra Tamnak Mountain Viewpoint in Pattaya traces how the eighteen-meter golden Buddha came to sit on the city's highest hill sometime between 1977 and the resort boom that followed, gazing out toward the sea. It follows a dispute that arrived decades later, when a beachfront condo tower rose directly into that sightline between 2011 and 2014, drawing complaints, press coverage and criticism of the city's mayor. Climb the roughly hundred steps flanked by two seven-headed serpents before you take in the view.