Three weeks ago, my brother-in-law dropped a letter in the mail to me, sending something that I needed but that wasn’t so valuable that express or certified mail was called for. Usually it takes about a week for a letter to make it from the United States to Bangkok. I waited and waited and finally gave up hope, calling Sunday to have a replacement sent to me, this time by express mail.
The next day, the original letter arrived with a stamp on it: “Missent to Jakarta, Indonesia.” Could Alanis Morissette have worked that into her 1995 hit, Ironic?
It’s like rain on your wedding day
It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid
It’s the parcel post that goes the Jakarta way
Who would’ve thought… it figures
What do you think?
christao408 
Maybe Rudy and Vincent wanted to add some things to the letter.
My sister says that mail from here to Italy “trickles in whenever it gets there.” One year they had a strike for a week (more than their usual one-day strikes), and they were so backlogged that after a week or so of trying to deliver the mail, they sent it all to the shredder. I think a detour to Indonesia would be preferable!
I noticed that the U.S. Postal Service is really bad. Whenever I get mail from the U.S., it takes foreeeeever.
Yikes! I suppose turning the experience into song lyrics is a constructive way to deal with the frustration! Now you’ll have 2 copies…
I note the local mail is excellent. Overseas or out of the country seems to take forever.
Well you know… Bangkok, Thailand, Jakarta, Indonesia… it’s like they’re right next to each other anyway. What’s the big deal? ;)I’m guessing Miss South Carolina now works for the Postal Service… and like such. lol
I think she could have worked it in:)If I mail a letter to someone in my town, it takes 4 to 5 days for it to arrive.If I send a letter to someone in the state capital around 60 miles away it gets there the next day.The mail from here has to go to the state capital and be sent back here.Makes no sense to me.
haha, I’ve received things from Malaysia, but have given up sending items via regular mail to Malaysia…it always seems to get “lost” =/
I haven’t sent stuff to Malaysia but I have sent stuff to Europe and Australia. The slowest for packages is when it is not air express. I wonder what they do on boats that deliver mail? Probably if a nation is poor they lose mail because of no checks and balance techniques.So yeah the ironic link showed even more why you like the song. I suppose someone hip might put in a you tube musical link.
Ironic, and then some.
@ElusiveWords – This was my thought. Rudy arrives in Bangkok today, so he could easily have brought it with him.@aPieceOfTheSky – Interesting that the Malaysian post office only seems to work when sending items, huh?@PPhilip – I wonder whether there is actually mail that is sent by boat anymore. Would seem that in this day and age, everything would be sent by air.@Grannys_Place – Now that is ironic! Talk about an inefficient system. Reminds me of a time I mailed something to a friend in the San Francisco Bay Area. He had moved to a new house about three miles away and I didn’t have that address. The post office slapped a stamp with the new address on it, then marked it “forwarding period expired” and returned it to me in Thailand. That’s right! Instead of sending it three miles to the new address, which they had, they instead shipped it 9,000 miles back to Bangkok.@marc11864 – It’s all ASEAN, right?@Fatcat723 – @beowulf222 – Well, most of the time I have really good experiences with the US mail. Usually, something that is sent from the US (even the midwest) arrives in Bangkok within a week.@murisopsis – I guess that is good in case my credit card gets stolen, right? (That is what was being shipped.)@slmret – Wow, they actually shredded the mail? That’s unconscionable!@Inciteful – Amen.
@christao408 – A whole lot of things my mother had made for a new grandchild was actually shredded — they announced it about a month later in the newspaper!
@christao408 – Maybe there are more Americans in Thailand living? Unless I opt for Express Mail, regular air mail takes in excess of 10 days.
How frustrating!