Some of my friends have probably been wondering why they haven’t gotten a package from me since we moved to Vietnam. It’s not because I’ve suddenly become a tightwad or decided that sending surprise packages is no longer fun. What keeps me from mailing anything from Vietnam is the bureaucratic postal service.

We trudged to the main post office today to mail a desk calendar to Marv’s uncle in California. First we lined up at the wrong window. At the second window, we were handed one white triplicate form, one pink half-size form, and one mini green customs form. While my maid helped me fill out the forms, the calendar was passed from postal worker to postal worker each inspecting every single page. They said they were checking to see who the publisher was, but I think they were most likely curious about what was in the calendar and checking to make sure that it wasn’t a banned publication with nudie pictures or something.

After the calendar passed inspection, they took wide packing tape printed with the post office logo and taped up the entire back side of the envelope as well as one strip over the front. The envelope and the forms were then passed to another window where we paid $4 USD to mail something that weighed 233 g (1/2 pound). Did it even weigh that much? Somehow I feel that either the postal worker or the scale wasn’t accurate. While paying, someone noticed that they’d forgotten the calendar at the previous window, hurried to retrieve it, and stuffed it back into the envelope.

The whole procedure took over half an hour and was as tedious as it reads. Stephen enjoyed the visit, though, and admired the 16 ceiling fans, 12 wall fans, 10 floor fans, and four chandeliers. Next time, I’ll probably have enough time to count all the floor tiles.


Photo by Phil Douglis