A Visit To Yanhee

I am a long time reader of the Stickman website and this is my first submission. I am one of the lucky ones and have been married to a "good" Thai girl from Korat for 25 years and have a beautiful daughter of 21. More on that in a further submission.
Just a little background, I have been to Thailand six times in the last eight years and love everything about it (weather, food, low stress, beautiful women, low cost of living etc.). I am from the USA and am a 51 year old production manager for
an Asian owned semiconductor company with a graduate degree and a six figure income. I will elaborate on some of my other experiences in Thailand in further submissions, but I would like to focus on my last trip and a visit to Yanhee Hospital.

My wife and I went to Thailand for Songkran 2006 and had a wonderful time. We arrived shortly before Songkran and I wanted to go to Yanhee Hospital to see about getting an upper and lower eyelift. We arrived early as it is first come first served and
got to see the doctor by 10 AM. He looked at me and recommended that I get a mid facelift and neck lift rather than eyelift. This was much more serious than I had planned for and told him I could not do it at this time. He then recommended to
my wife that an upper and lower eyelift would do wonders for her. She was a little hesitant, but went ahead with the procedure that afternoon. If you are Thai you get the Thai price which is about 60% of the farang price. <Why do they have to do this? I just cannot understand it… – Stick> Wow, talk about double pricing, but it is still less than half the price charged in the states. My wife came through the surgery well and was discharged that afternoon with the expected swelling and bruising. Soon
after we went to Korat to spend Songkran with the family and my wife wearing sunglasses. Overall it was a very enjoyable time at Songkran being "upcountry" with the family. My relatives could not understand why we would spend the money
to have my wife’s eyes fixed. We flew to Chiang Mai after Songkran and spent an afternoon getting a Thai massage together. One of the massage girls asked my wife about her bruising and she explained about the surgery. They all began to
laugh and told my wife that they all assumed that I was like a Thai man and got drunk during Songkran and beat her. You really are a product of your environment sometimes.

Fast forward to October 2006. My wife's eyes looked great and I had just spent two months in another Asian country for work and had a vacation lined up in Thailand before I came back. My wife flew over to meet me and this time I planned for the hospital
stay and extended healing from the facelift and neck lift. I went to Yanhee on a Friday morning early and the doctor got me in for surgery late that afternoon. It is almost all Thai patients at Yanhee and there are a high number of katoeys in various stages of conversion coming in for surgery. I was not given any kind of sedative until I was actually in the operating room where they put something in the IV and I was out. When I woke up I was heavily bandaged and could hardly breathe.
After taking me to my room I was catered to and waited on hand and foot by a collection of some of the most beautiful young Thais I had ever seen, and I have seen a few. I was in the hospital for three days and was very swollen. I could not have
asked for any better service.

Now that I have recovered and the swelling and bruising has gone down (it took about 2 months) I am very pleased with the results. The procedure took at least ten years off of me. Overall, I would say the whole experience was as pleasant as it could be
under the circumstances not to mention much less expensive than in the states. As far as the quality of the doctor I would go back to him for anything and he has my full confidence. Again, the service at Yanhee was outstanding and the young ladies
in the gogo bars have nothing on their staff.

Stickman's thoughts:

Yanhee is the hospital most well-known in Thailand for plastic surgery. I really am surprised – and disappointed – to hear of the premium they charge farangs. That’s just plain wrong. I wonder what would happen if someone tried to negotiate it…