Karen Girl in Chiang Mai Hospital

My recent trip to Chiang Mai was to carry out some business. I opted to travel on the overnight VIP bus service from Ubon because the flights are routed through Bangkok and although the outward trips by Air Asia connected well, there was no connection on the return leg without spending a night in Bangkok or a small fortune on Thai Airways. So I arrived in Chiang Mai very early in the morning after a journey of 1055 kms lasting 15 hours, two stops for noodles, too cold air-conditioning, and a rubbish American video. And yet travelling between Thailand and the UK I always take a flight with a break in the middle because I don't like sitting on a plane for 11 hours.

The main business part of the trip was scheduled for the second day, so I was in slightly better humour by the time the meeting came around. And the meeting itself went very well. But in the meantime I had suffered higher temperatures than I have been used to in Phana, taxis disguised as buses, and food that promised to be much more delicious than it ever was. I don't like Chiang Mai  much, I concluded, and I'm certainly in no hurry to go there again.

But this sort of experience is rarely without its saving graces, I have found. And that came on my last morning there when I met an English woman who was staying in the same cheap hotel as I was (600 Baht with Thai breakfast). Madge Davey runs a little charity based in Leeds, England. She set it up a few years ago after her daughter returned from spending time as a volunteer in a Karen refugee camp on the Burmese border. Madge had time on her hands and felt it was time she did something to help some pretty desperate people. She has raised a fair amount of money over the past few years, partly through a charity shop in Leeds and partly through donations she solicits on her website.

Her visit to Thailand this year had the specifc purpose of arranging for surgery in Chiang Mai for this little Karen girl called Buk Paw who, as you can see, has a huge growth on her nose.   Madge  had hoped to be still in Thailand when the procedure was carried out, but although the little girl and her mother had been in the hospital, the surgery had to be postponed because Buk Paw had a chest infection. Everything was in place, however, and by now the operation should have taken place.

Madge is a very modest woman, I would say, but she does a wonderful PR job for her charity and for the cause of the Karen in the camp. Her charity is called KidzinKampz and the website is HERE . Please visit it and see some of the work that is being done at the camp with the help of Madge and people who are a little bit like her (that's you and me, I hope).

Comments

[Mike]

Lawrence reading a post like this does show that there are a lot of good folk out there. Far better than following Twitter last night to see what had happened to TS and his fortune. Pity the Thai government don't treat the Karen a bit better.

[Martyn]

Lawrence I can't add much more than Mike has already said and hope the girl's operation was a success. I did visit the website and read a piece about Buk Paw but as of today there wasn't news as to whether the operation had actually taken place. Fingers crossed for the young lass and that in years to come she'll turn a few heads with her beautiful looks.

[Lawrence]

Hi Martyn. Thanks for the follow-up. I'll try to find out how Buk Paw is getting on and post some more about her later. Madge was concerned about how the procedure would leave her, but the surgeon was very reassuring that she would look fine and show no signs of it. I hope so, too.

[[email protected]]

Hello Lawrence, this is Madge Davey (we met in Chaing Mai. To let you know that Buk Paw had made a wonderful recovery. Send me your e-mail and I'll attach a recent photograph taken in January this year. I am going back to the camps again in October. Thank you for your kind comments.

Madge