Mail at Your Risk

In Cambodia, if you choose to send letters or parcels at a post office, it is a big challenge.

Post offices may not open. Postal clerks may not be ready to serve you. You may be randomly charged. Stamps may not be at face value. Your mail may end up in the dustbin rather than be delivered, and if it is to deliver, the service can be at tortoise pace. The situation is a bit better if you are local Khmer (accent tells). For foreigners, prayers may help.

Low rank civil servants in Cambodia have salary which is difficult to support basic living. As a result public service users have to "contribute". Although there is a postage rate table at Phnom Penh CPO, the postal clerks charge at their mercy. Amazing enough, they don't always overcharge, once in a while they undercharge!! Maybe some happy-hour rates there.

Phnom Penh is the mail hub of this "Kingdom of Wonder". Other than in-town delivery, all mail, both domestic and international, have to be sent to Phnom Penh first, then dispatched to their destination. Flying in and out of the capital is wonderfully frequent, but travelling within the country can be wonderfully slow, it depends on the mood of postal clerks, and depends on the condition of road network which deteriorates badly in rain seasons.

This is a fair reason why Cambodians prefer telephone or private express shipping companies. Intra-town mail of private correspondence is getting less, within town is unheard of.

A Briton blogger, Michelle, has shared with us her adventure at Phnom Penh CPO, please click here for story.

The featured cover is a beautiful 1993 philatelic mail from Cambodia to USA. It was the time when the country name changed from "Kampuchea" back to "Cambodia". The old "Kampuchea" postmarks went obsoleted, the new "Cambodge" postmarks were not ready, so this pre-1975 postmark only with city name and no country name was just right for the duty. It was heavily used in 1994 and 1995.