When I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zambia, the mail would come to the city once a week, on Thursdays. Everybody was always excited, because you never knew what, if anything, you'd receive. We'd hang around all afternoon, waiting for the ZamPost truck to arrive. Of course, usually we'd have to continue waiting, because the postal officials would take FOREVER to distribute the mail. Sometimes, we'd even have to agonize through the night and collect our mail on Friday. It was tough. In reality, I think just about everybody thinks it's fun to receive mail. (Well, except for bills.) Now it seems, some post offices are trying to make it fun to send mail, as well.
For example, on Japan's southeast coast, there exists an underwater mailbox. It's not a sunken relic that now serves as an artificial reef. Rather, it's an actual, working mail collection point officially recognized as part of Susami's postal system. Evidently, the mailbox is 33 feet beneath the water, and divers are required to use special waterproof plastic postcards. Each day, the contents are collected from the box, which reportedly contains as many as 200 pieces of mail on the busy days.
Not that far away, Malaysia's Reef Dive Resort has set up what it believes to be that country's first underwater mailbox. Any mail sent through this mailbox is sealed inside plastic bags and is postmarked with a special stamp. Other locations that have underwater mailboxes include St. Thomas, Paradise Island, and Vanuatu, which also boasts an underwater post office! Okay, so the office is only ten feet underwater, but it has specially-trained staff. I wonder if their training includes how to be slow and listless, like the staff in Zambia. Have you ever used an underwater mailbox? Would you organize a special dive trip in order to do so?
[Thanks, Uncle Roger!]
1. I have in deed used the underwater post office in Vanuatu. I sent myself and several other friends waterproof postcards from there. It was in the spring of 2005 and at that time I was told that it was the only one of its kind.
You purchase the postcard from the giftshop, very reasonably priced, and filled it out like any other postcard and then you snorkel about 75 to 100 feet off the beach and swim down to the mailbox and deposit your postcard. The price of the postcard included the postage to leave the country and it took about 2 weeks to arrive in Seattle area.
How are the postcards picked up? The divemasters on the daily tours will check the mailbox on the way back to shore for any deposited postcards and will pick them up and take them to the giftshop to be picked up by the mailpeople.
I asked if it would be alright if I could pick up the postcards coming back from one of the dives and they said "sure", so I had a friend pose for a picture in the "postoffice" and then grabbed the mail and went to shore. Not real exciting, but not something a lot of people get to do.
The resort we stayed at is located here: www.hideaway.com.vu and as a side note, we did stay in the "2 bedroom villa", as it used to be owned by a couple friends of ours. The villa looks South towards New Zealand. Beautiful place and the friendliest locals I have every met on vacation.
Randy
Posted at 12:37AM on Jul 26th 2006 by Randy Griffin