SPITZWELL a year in Thailand

Here is the macabre April Fool’s Day joke I played on my brothers. Context: My poor mother just survived a year from hell including a hip replacement, a broken femur, and several surgeries to repair the femur which was resistant to heal. There is other context that makes this really funny in my humble and […]

On Wednesday, Mom and me landed in Bagan which is the arid and sweltering hot central plain of Yangon this time of year. We spent an hour in the local market at the start of the day, alongside our guide Aung (featured with his family below). The markets are similar to what you find in […]

Part two of our journeys with Burmese students Win and KoKo (now properly spelled but still pronounced KuKu) started with a walk to the nearby park and tower to get a view of Yangon     KoKo is given to sudden bursts of song, his favorite verse being “Wherever you go, whatever you do, I […]

Mom and I arrived in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Rangoon, Burma) last night for a week’s visit. It’s my first time here. I managed to track down “Win” who my friend Roseanne met by happenstance at a temple while visiting Yangon a few months ago. She recommended connecting with him for some local perspective on the […]

After four surgeries and having spent the better part of a year in hospital beds and wheelchairs following a hip replacement and a broken femur, Gaga (aka my Mom) rode an elephant!                                        

My mother flew into Bangkok over the weekend and we saw each other for the first time in almost a year; very lovely! As I have honed my skills as the family tour guide, I organized various activities for our Bangkok visit together. We started out with a tour of the Bangkok backwaters, which are […]

Last weekend it was Pai time! Pai is a beautiful but tourist-oriented hippie town just about 120 kilometers away. It took us a few hours to get there because you travel on a torturous snaking road featuring 762 curves up one side of a mountain and down the other to get there. I had been dreading […]

Tess and her pals made their first horror movie at Friday’s post-soccer bash at our house. The party also involved swimming at our fabulous little pool spa, pizza and ice cream sundaes.