Retired teacher learning about faraway places

Newton — After two months on the “trip of a lifetime,” Bud Chase, retired Kittatinny Regional High School English teacher, is back home ready to share stories of India, Nepal, and Thailand. Chase, who has lived in Newton for 30 years, retired from teaching in 2005. His decision to travel to these countries was twofold. First, his church supports a 73-year-old woman missionary based in India, who came to visit last summer and urged him to visit her. Second, his daughter, Julie, wanted to return to Nepal and visit the village where she devoted three months of her life to teaching English. With the help of Open Mind Projects, a non-profit organization that arranges for volunteers to teach in Thailand and Laos, Bud and Julie spent time in Thailand teaching as they lived with the country’s poorest residents. “Not many guys get to travel with their 29-year-old daughter,” said Chase. The first portion of the trip was a 2-week visit to India, where they stayed in the city of Hyderabad and spent eight days doing missionary work. “I preached with an interpreter and taught at house gatherings,” Chase said. The remainder of their tour in India included the “Golden Triangle,” an itinerary of visits to Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, the home of the Taj Mahal. “We had no plans. We arrived in the airport and went to the tourism desk,” he said. They hired a driver and a car for four days for only $265. “He knew Delhi well, knew how to get around, and hooked us up with a guide in Agra and Jaipur. While visiting these cities, Chase was struck by the level of poverty. “Poverty gets to you; it’s ever present,” he said. After their excursion through India, the pair went to Kathmandu, Nepal, for three days and stayed at a guest house for a short refresher. Next, they met and lived with the people in the tiny village where his daughter taught English four years ago. The small village consists of five or six houses on each side, separated by a dirt road. “They (the natives) remembered her (Julie). They are so poor, but so willing to give. The hospitality was genuine.” Their next destination was Pokhara, a city west of Kathmandu and one of the most popular tourist destinations in Nepal, where they stayed for about a week and a half. Following this, the father-daughter team took an eight-day backpack trek through the Himalayan Mountains. “It was magical,” he said. “It was the most difficult thing I have ever done.” Luckily, Chase is very physically fit, and works out daily, swimming, cycling, and lifting weights. The two took the ABC (Annapurna Base Camp) trail, which includes the tenth highest summit in the world. The tour is know as “tea house trekking,” where hikers stay at small accommodations, called tea houses. The “further you go, the less and less you get. Eventually, there was no shower, no electricity, and you could purchase a bucket of hot water for a dollar,” he said. Since there are no cars or roads in the range, provisions are available via porters, people who carry large baskets on their backs. “I saw an ambulance, it was a porter carrying a man on his back in a basket,” he said. After the rigors of climbing in the Himalayas, the pair traveled to Thailand for two and a half weeks, staying in a small village on the Island of Puket. Here, they spent three days training and two weeks teaching through the volunteer organization. Two things Chase noticed here was that the natives “don’t swim” and there is an “absence of basic first aid skills.” Chase pointed out that perhaps the great loss of life from the tsunami could have been prevented if the people had these skills. The Thai people, Chase said, are very hospitable and have great respect for older people. “They called me ‘Papa,’ being a gray-haired man,” Chase said, “and then would ask, ‘How many years, you?’ Even the headmaster called me ‘Papa.’” The pair also had the pleasure of attending a festival called Loy Krathong, an annual celebration that takes place in November. Intricately folded banana leaves, flowers, candles, incense sticks are made into small rafts. During the night of the full moon, people release the small rafts on a river. It is considered one of Thailand’s most popular and romantic holiday festivals. The final excitement that Bud and Julie experienced together in the trip was paragliding in Thailand. When asked what his favorite portion for this trip of a lifetime, he said, “While an answer to that question usually invites the name of a place or an event, my favorite part of the trip has to be the friendships that I was able to make with so many different people. Every time I am drawn to think of the trip, I immediately think of the people and the interactions that I had with them, including my daughter, Julie. They have all had a hand in reshaping the way I think about life.” Chase hopes to return to these countries someday.