Anyone here been to Thailand or Nepal?

I'm considering a vacation to one or the other late this Spring, haven't yet decided which.

If anyone's been to either country, please share with me your experiences and feedback! :hi:

Recently found a new Nepalese imbiss up the block. The FOOD is KICKASS!!!
I mean, SERIOUS KICKASS!!! And everyone working there is so sweet. There are pics of the Dalai Lama all over the joint. Did I mention that the FOOD is KICKASS???

From what she told me, it is a miserably poor country, with the kind of abject poverty and life choices that we Americans cannot even imagine. She and her friend misread the guide book that they brought with them, and ended up staying overnight at the poorest-rated establishment, rather than the nicest, which would have been only relative. They were given mats and slept on the floor. My grandmother, with her Pollyanna outlook on other people, thought the owner must have been "embarrassed," because he brought them pillows and blankets. My grandmother and her friend were in their 70s, at the time, two elderly ladies, traveling alone.

And the foster child that she adopted was part of a charity program where she paid for a little girl to attend a sponsored school. The man who ran this charity made periodic trips to Nepal to deliver the sponsors' contributions, in person, because there was such a great likelihood of them being stolen, if sent in the mail. After a few years, my grandmother received a letter from this child's father, asking that her contributions be sent straight to him. Of course, my grandmother didn't agree and this child was eventually taken out of school by her father and put to work in a carpet factory, though I suppose that her fate could have been worse. My grandmother didn't hear much more about this child, but then sponsored her younger brother, and increased her contribution so that the little boy could board at this U.S.-sponsored school, rather than being a day student, and farther from the reaches of his father. I remember seeing letters from him, thanking her and saying how much he hoped to meet her. But my grandmother was well into her 80s, by then, and wouldn't have been up to such an arduous trip. I also read literature that she had about life in Nepal, and I remember thinking that it sounded precarious. My grandmother was a resourceful and inveterate traveler, visiting much of the world, but Nepal was difficult, even for her. That's what I remember from all she told me, if this helps.:shrug: