From the Pink Ganesha to Pancakes in Pattaya

Saturday morning, the odometer read 145,248 kilometers. We were 128 kilometers from Pattaya, and the car contained cameras, wet travel gear, luggage, a Buddha, a coffee machine, and an air fryer. There was just enough room left for Siriwan and me. Apparently that also meant there was room for one more stop.

For the last three days, rain had dictated which parts of our itinerary we could actually see. Our final temple, Wat Saman Rattanaram in Chachoengsao, wasn’t going to disappear into the clouds. Its enormous reclining pink Ganesha announced itself in a color I usually associate with Pattaya nightlife.

The statue is the obvious reason to pull out a camera, but there’s more going on around it. The Tourism Authority of Thailand’s page for this temple describes the mouse figures beside Ganesha: visitors whisper a wish into one ear while covering the other, asking the mouse to carry the request to him. After days of staring at closed gates and blank mountain viewpoints, I could have put in a fairly specific request about the weather. We walked the complex, filmed our final temple, and got back on the road.

The last fuel stop cost 1,400 baht for 37.037 liters. We arrived in Pattaya at 145,376 kilometers. That made 1,078 kilometers since leaving Udon four days earlier, with the tank still just over three-quarters full. Our recorded road-trip spending came to 9,391 baht plus the Day Three fuel amount I forgot to write down. Saturday night was about to start a separate, less defensible set of expenses.

Back in Pattaya, still moving

We unloaded at MG Lodge, and Siriwan went to get her nails done. I had watched her navigate wet parks, temple steps, family stops, and my overpacked schedule. Now she had an appointment that didn’t depend on whether a national park was open.

Dinner was at King Kong Burger & Steak on Soi Honey. Its own website has the menu if you want to plan a stop. After four days of roadside meals and convenience-store snacks, sitting down for a burger felt like a proper return to Pattaya. It also seemed wiser than starting a night out on an empty stomach and trusting my judgment to improve after a few drinks.

From there we went to Candy Club near Tree Town on Soi Buakhao, then finished at iBar on Walking Street. The route had changed from parks and temples to burgers and bass without requiring either of us to pretend we were different people. Siriwan had fresh nails. I no longer had a mountain road to drive. Those were two good reasons to stay out.

The four-day trip ended, officially, when we parked at home. Saturday ended much later. I’ll leave the after-hours part where it belongs; the headboard already gave the neighbors a report.

On Sunday morning, Siriwan got up early and made pancakes. No map pin for that one, either.

We’d left Udon in heavy rain hoping to film mountains, parks, and temples. We came back with fog, closures, deer, swollen waterfalls, full memory cards, a carload of appliances, and the final pink Ganesha. Some of the best footage happened because the weather refused to cooperate. But after 1,078 kilometers, the scene I remember most is much smaller: breakfast at home, with nowhere else we needed to drive.