Hotel Chaba Garden Resort (Pattaya, Thailand)

Depending on the location of your room (*specify not near the Thai bar to the rear), this is on a side street and is a place to come for peace and relaxation. It can be a bit of a pain getting to virtually anywhere, but the bonus is the peaceful, quiet and relaxing setting. *You can't walk to the famous Walking Street; it's a journey involving two buses.

The bargain prices fully justify overlooking the faults that exist here. Depending on your arrangement, American or Thai breakfast choices may be included. If not, the cost is quite small. This is a budget hotel and one that benefits from pleasant staff and friendly, helpful owners.

The pool is a bonus and is clean and well maintained.

There are reservations about the room itself, a major one being that the ‘safe' isn't secured to anything, so the intruder is spared the inconvenience of having to search for cash and valuables - they just pick up the safe and leave.

Nothing is within really easy reach and it's even quite a hike to get to the nearest taxi rank. If the front desk was manned, they'd probably get a cab for you. There's rarely anyone there though and yelling for attention becomes embarrassing. Seriously, a real solution is to rent a motorbike!

To the rear of the hotel is a bar. This is noisy until well into the early hours and the pattern seems to be pretty much the same every night. Some of the rooms appear to be rented on a long-term basis and this factor, too, brings its own problems.