A Trip to the Post Office

Our first day in Hanoi, we decided to go to the post office to send home the wood carving we bought in Bali, along with some books and clothes that we decided we didn't need. We walked from the hotel to Hoan Kiem Lake, a big lake in the middle of the city with a nice bridge to a temple.
The post office was a large government building on the eastern side of the lake, and we walked up to the counter marked international parcels. The woman there said that shipping by air would be 1 month and by sea would take 3 months. That's a slow plane! Either way, we would need to unwrap our carving and bring a box to put everything in.

We carefully undid the good wrapping job they had done in Bali until she could see that it was indeed wood, and redid it to get it ready for sending. "Where can we get a box?" we asked. "You can buy it from a store." "Where?" She gave me some vague directions to a store nearby, so I set out with a mental image of what size box I would need. Why the main post office in Hanoi doesn't sell boxes is beyond me.

Dee stayed behind as I walked looking for a store, though I wasn't sure what kind of store. Eventually, I came across a book store, which I figured would be able to help me. "Do you speak English?" Not really. I pointed to a box on the shelf and said that I needed a box, knowing that she would have no idea what I meant. She said something to an assistant, who came back with a book. Thinking that she thought I wanted the book that was in the box I pointed to, I shook my head and continued to try to explain. However, I realized suddenly that they had brought me a Vietnamese - English dictionary. The bookstore turned out to be a good call. I opened to "box" and pointed, and they seemed to understand. I moved my hands to signify how big it should be, and the assistant went back to search.

He returned with a slightly ratty used box that nonetheless looked workable, unless it was too small for our purposes. They were willing to give me the box for free, so I returned to the post office hoping I was done asking people for a box in a language I don't speak. The wrapped wood carving just barely fit, and the box was literally the perfect size to fit all of the items we wanted to send home. With about a whole roll of tape to shore up the box, we were good to go.

Our helper weighed the box and informed us that it would be 1,560,000 dong to ship by air (about $95) or less than half that by boat. I had just over 1.5 million dong on me, and 3 months seemed excessive, so we settled on air. We filled out the appropriate forms, giving our address at least 4 times, gave our money, and hoped for the best.