A Postcard From West Bengal

Reverse side

This postcard has been sitting on my desk for a long time. I have been puzzling about where it was from. Lightning bulb moment – on the reverse side of the card note the word Katarka. With the help of Google maps I found Katarka in West Bengal, India. Hooray – mystery solved. That was my geography lesson. The joy of collecting postcards.

A Reminder of Times Past

Grand Pacific Hotel, Suva, Fiji Islands.

Reverse side

This postcard of the Grand Pacific Hotel in Fiji doesn’t really do it justice. It was a magnificent hotel surrounded by lush tropical greenery. We stayed there in the mid-1970’s. This was our initial hostelry while we looked for a house to rent for two years. What an introduction it was to dengue fever which was raging throughout the Fiji Islands just at that time. We were so sick – one by one we succumbed. But thankfully we each got better and could pursue the normal activities associated with arriving in a new place. And I can remember the Grand Pacific Hotel, and a certain Dr. Mehta, with fondness despite being so sick there. Fiji was a wonderful posting. I wanted to stay there forever!

FOCUS ON IMPALA

Thank you for this very informative post about this beautiful wild animal.

Something Over Tea

As beautiful as they are, impala (Aepyceros melampus),  tend to be overlooked by tourists to large game parks, such as the Kruger National Park and others – mainly because they are on the constant lookout for ‘more exciting animals’. This is likely so because impala are the most common antelope of the bushveld regions of South Africa. One sees them everywhere and so it came as no surprise when our guide on a night drive through a section of the Kruger National Park declined to stop after we’d spotted a herd or two, laughingly dismissing them as ‘the MacDonalds of the bush’ because they are preyed upon by most predators. Here is a herd of impala ewes lying in the dry winter grass with a few waterbuck doing the same in the background.

I think they are rather elegant animals which deserve a closer look. You will notice…

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Tunnels in Boston

East Boston Tunnel Entrance, Near Atlantic Avenue Station

Reverse side

Note the postmark 1908

This tunnel predates the Sumner Tunnel and was for “trolly cars” only.

I never realized this. For me I just remember the Sumner Tunnel in the 1940’s. And that memory I associate with my father. Little did I realize how new the Sumner Tunnel was at that time. It was built in 1947.