Bali Expat Forum - Bali Travel Forum

Hi Markit

...but what do you do if you want/must send post to the rest of the world?...

A couple of "suggestions".

Go to a "real" Post Office (not some agency in a supermarket)
"Register" your mail - costs more but there's a better chance it will get there
Send your mail to somebody in your town via email, get them to print it out and deliver it personally.
What are friends for?

A Danish friend of mine told me a story about sending a U.S. one hundred dollar bill in a registered letter to the family of a child he was sponsoring in Bali. It never arrived. Six months or so later when he was in Bali next he went to the post office and demanded to see their records. The post officer immediately asked how much was in the letter. My friend said something like "who said anything about there being money in the letter?"

He told them there was one hundred dollars in the letter. The post officer disappeared into the back office and came back with five dirty old twenty dollar notes and claimed that he had found the money, it had simply been misplaced.

My own experience is when we applied for Ina's fiance visa. She received correspondence a few times at her kos in Bali from the Australian Embassy in Jakarta. It all arrived no problems.

Many thanks for the interesting and helpful suggestions. Having moved around quite a bit in our lives and to some of the worlds most "interesting" spots we are used to immediately getting those letters from far flung friends and family that start: "now that you are living in (San Francisco, Goa, Munich, London, etc.) we would love to come and visit...." Maybe these won't be quite so quick to find us, but I doubt it!

Regards
Markit

Almost all mail coming from USA and Europe is "examined" to see if there is any money enclosed. If there is????? If there isn't and the examination has not destroyed the mail it gets sent on to a local post office where a similar procedure is employed.

I never send mail anymore

ahhh, should try sending a $1 bill doused with anthrax, just for shits and giggles.. that wuld be hillarious - I cn see the headlines now, "3 corrupt officers dead over Rhp 9,100"..

ct

ahhh, should try sending a $1 bill doused with anthrax, just for shits and giggles.. that wuld be hillarious - I cn see the headlines now, "3 corrupt officers dead over Rhp 9,100"..

I fail to see the humour in that suggestion.

How's this for crude behavior? For all you prospective bank robbers out there; most banks have a stack of bankrolled money which contains a small explosive charge and a red indelible dye - the idea is that when the robbers come to the pay out window they are given the charged bank notes which then after several minutes explode covering the getaway car and passengers in the dye.

Well, one such bank robber sued the San Jose (CA) cops for not getting the ambulance to him fast enough because they were laughing so hard.

There being no honor amongst thieves it seems that during the getaway he put a stack of money in his trouser pocket and when the "small" explosion went off and he was immediately separated from his testicals.

The police found that very funny - me too, truth told, in a grit-teeth kinda way.

Does anyone have experience of ordering books from Amazon.com for delivery to Bali?

What is the % probability they will arrive?

Will import taxes or the like be imposed?

I received some DVD's through Amazon a few years ago. (present from a forum member).

Yes, I had to pay import duties.

I also regularly receive DHL stuff. 100% arrival.

I have received several DVD's from both the USA and Europe in the last year without problems. Also flower seeds from the USA and Australia.

I did not have to pay any import duties here and am still wondering why. Especially with respect to the flower seeds. I imagined all kinds of difficulties with them, but everything was OK.

Can we gather from this that you are playing DVDs to your flowers?

I've heard that plants react positively to music but hadn't heard that they like DVDs. What do you show them "Day of the Triffids", "How green was my Valley" or maybe "Grapes of Wrath"?

On a more serious note; the image I'm beginning to get is that there are no hard and fast rules but that the Chaos Principle seems to rein supreme.

Good! love chaos! When it's expected!

Now you are learning mate

Jimbo I can accept, neh welcome, a degree of chaos at some levels.

Where the fun really stops is with bank accounts (sorry, there is a parallel thread for those who don't understand).

So I am, possibly, learning but perhaps not in the sense you may mean lol.