Some days it just feels like you need to “get out” and “have an adventure.”

We love the days when we just pile into a car, turn up the music and the completely unexpected finds us on the road. Add in our new favourite traveling buddies, from Worldschool Adventures, and it’s a recipe for hilarity and fun.

The first adventure found us before we even left Nai Yang: a party was happening at our local wat. We don’t know exactly what it was about, but it was definitely a “merit making” ceremony of some sort. There were drums and beautiful dancers and loads of folks marching around and around the wat carrying what looked to us like christmas trees decorated with money that were being presented to the temple. After our experiences with the Vegetarian Festival last month, this was a welcome and cheerful change in festival tone.

Every time we venture southward on Phuket we are confirmed in our decision to live at the north end. There’s plenty “to do” down south, which is exactly the problem:

• Wall to wall people, most of them foreigners
• McDonalds and Starbucks (need I say more)
• Prices double number of beach chairs quadruple
• There are traffic jams; this is unacceptable

Today we set out to see the Big Buddha, which absolutely MUST be seen if you visit the island. It’s a landmark. I confess: we hadn’t bothered. It’s wrong. I know. And it was spectacular. We arrived just as the afternoon light was “just right” and in time to hear the monks chanting in the unfinished chamber below the giant white marble statue. Monkeys bounced through the banana tree laden jungle on either side of the winding stairs, and the children rubbed the centers of the gongs to make them “sing.” The view of Chalong Bay was spectacular; we wondered why it had taken us so long to make the trip.

Would you like to sit and listen to the monks with us:

Of course the real adventure was getting to the Big Buddha in the first place.

Nothing we ever do goes as planned, we should know better than to expect it. Adventures always find us.

I should point out, for those of you who might be nuts enough to rent a car on Phuket while you’re here on holiday and take a jaunt about the island, that the yellow and white striped bits of the curb are not exactly “no parking” zones, (the red and white striped are definitely no parking, anyone can see that) but they are definitely “no parking for YOU” zones. This would have been easier to establish if there hadn’t been another car parked between the songthaews cluttering the curb.

If we didn’t get our first clue, the second clue did it:

Returning from lunch to find the two tires on the curb side of the vehicle flat. And I don’t mean, “gee the tires are a bit low dontcha think?” flat, I mean, FLAT, flat.

“The tires look a bit low…” someone mentioned as the clowns piled into the car.

Understatement of the century. Clowns back out of the car.

Now imagine ten foreigners standing on the uneven sidewalk staring at the two dead flat tires while the songthaew drivers peeked from under the brims of their hats in their waiting trucks: some pretending to “clean” the seats. Others, flat out staring.

“Those dudes just let the air out of our tires while we ate, I’ll bet five bucks on it.” I grumbled.

“No, you really think so? Why would they do that?”

“Because this must be THEIR parking… and it’d be an absolute miracle to have them both go flat by any other means over the hour it took us to have lunch!” In the absence of someone to ticket us, what better way to teach the Farang the “rules” than a little vigilante justice. The night the police stole our van in Veracruz for a “parking violation” came to mind, I was 8 and I sat on the sidewalk and CRIED, but I digress.

At least they were decent chaps and returned the valve covers instead of slashing the tires, or breaking the stems.

Tony and Gabe took off for the bank (likely haunt of English speaking natives) to procure assistance. Amy settled the combined herd in the shade. Mike set off in the other direction in search of a solution.

The songthaew drivers were noticeably not forthcoming in their offers of aid.

The men at the taxi stand seemed glad for the diversion, however, and turned out en masse to help get us re-inflated… with a dust buster. You know, one of those little mini-vacuums that are sold for mucking the cheerios out of the back of your car or getting WAY back up under the couch after the hair balls your cat leaves? These resourceful fellows had reverse engineered one and added a pressure gauge to it. It even plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car.

Of course it couldn’t completely refill the tires, but it got us “off the ground.” Tony and Mike took the car in search of more air. Amy and I took the kids to the beach for an hour. It could have been much worse.

After a stop at a light house and a lovely ocean overlook, we finally made it to the Big Buddha.

Wat Chalong was worth the visit as well. The highlight for the boys was the monks lighting off huge strings of firecrackers inside what reminded me very much of Johanna’s handmade earth oven that she cooked pizza in for us in BC last fall. I lit my customary candles for the people who always get them and the car ferried us safely home, dancing all the way to the music our kids love best.

Oh. I nearly forgot the other highlight of the day… also during lunch.

These ladies came around collecting for an orhpan’s fund and singing so horribly that most patrons were literally THROWING money in their direction to get them to move on.

Is it just me, or is “Killing me softly” NOT the song to be singing with your guitar, in bad Thai-English to support the orphans?

Of course we donated, but not before Hannah snagged the guitar and played THEM a song. Mike, ever the comedian then stuck out his hand, “Where’s OUR money? We’re collecting for THESE kids!” He laughed. The ladies laughed.

We wandered back to the beach and our flat tires.