Monday, April 27, 2009

27. The Postal System

Today a got a package from Eliz! Yay! It took six weeks...the longest a package has ever taken to get here. The kinda sad thing about the amount of time it took this package to get here is that it had a ton of great Easter stuff. But, it also had other fun stuff like playdough (!), blonde bobby pins and candy.

Easter basket grass!

It matches!

Gummies! Yum.

The postal system is a bit inefficient, yet suprisingly efficient for the third world. Usually it takes a regular flat rate box 3-4 weeks to get here from the U.S. The slow part is not getting over the ocean. It can take as little as 5 days to cross the Atlantic. But, it gets stuck when it gets in country. Customs may cause some of the problems, but mostly it's just that things get done a lot slower here.

When sending a letter from here to home, the stamp costs about 25 rupees ($.50). Boxes are a bit more and can take up to a month and a half, depending on which method you choose to use. Your options include Speedpost (air), half ship/half air or completely by ship. I have sent a few things in country, including a big padded envelope full of goodies for a friend. It cost 51 rupees ($1) and only 6 days. Pretty good. When you send a package domestically or internationally you have to sew cloth around the box. Like this.


Pretty neat, huh?

Oh, and thanks Eliz! I love you!

2 comments:

McBee said...

Saw your blog on the Sits site via chic chick media. I like it! Are you in India? (I obviously haven't read it all the way through yet.)

b said...

Maybe! ;-) Thanks for reading. I only have a few more months here, and it has been great. I appreciate you stopping by. Continue to follow along. I hope to be just as diligent to update it when I get back to the States.