Sending and Receiving

We love to receive letters and packages from family and friends so I thought I would put up a post about it.

Basically this is to let you know about how the mail system works here, the good, the bad, and the ugly parts.  Ok ... so there aren't many good parts to it.  I hope I haven't already discouraged you from sending anything, but just in case keep reading.

Let me break it down into three simple statements that seem to be very applicable when it comes to sending packages to Indo.  Letters seem to get here in decently good shape, so this post is bent more toward sending packages.  Having said this, if you would like to send us something small enough to fit in an envelope with a letter or card then go for it.

1. It will more than likely take at least two weeks for anything sent from the States to get here.   
The best way to ship packages is in one of those flat rate Priority boxes.  Shipping it this way doesn't guarantee with 100% certainty that it will get here, but it is more likely.

2. Once it arrives in Indonesia the workers at the Post Offices will go through the packages.
It seems that they go through the packages for two reasons.  First is that it is probably their job to look through the package and check the contents so they know how much tax to place on the package. (more on this in statement 3)  The other reason the contents of packages are sifted through is because if a worker at the post office likes something he/she sees then they may just take it out and it will never get to us. These are just some of the realities of living in Indonesia. So don't send things that are of great value- unless we ask for them specifically.

3. We could have to pay a small fortune to actually receive our package.
Once the packages have been picked through at the post office, they are taped back up in a crude but sufficient manner.  There is a good chance that we will have to pay some kind of tax to even pick our package up from the post office.  This tax is determined by what the workers at the post office see in the package.  You can do one thing to help keep the tax we pay on the packages to a minimum, that is when shipping it from the states make sure the label says "zero value" or "gift".  This tells the workers here that we aren't receiving a package with things that we are going to sell at a high price.

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The only other option for you to get mail to us is to hand deliver it yourself, which we really wouldn't mind.  That would actually be our preferred method.