India Post

I have some dear friends, Mary (aka Spinnity) and Janice (aka Bogie) who gave me a very sweet present before I left the States. Knowing that decent yarn is difficult to find in India, they gave me a gift certificate to Webs and yes- Webs ships to India! Well, after a little hmmming and such I decided to use my gift certificate to order some yarn. Lace yarn. Valley Yarns Merino/Tencel. 2 cones of it! Yippee! I perused the site and sent in my order March 3rd. I also ordered some other lace yarn the following day from The Knittery in Australia. Turns out I also really needed some Superwash lace for one of the Sock Madness patterns. The Knittery yarn arrived in about one week, but then it took about one week for them to notify me and for me to figure out exactly where I needed to go to pick up said yarn. With me so far?

Anyway, back to Webs. Finally this week I decided that I needed to try to track down this package. It had been a month after all! I sent an e-mail to Webs and they assured me that it had left the country. So I knew then that I had to go bug the people at India Post. I have by now heard many horror stories about missing packages, missing items from packages, packages that are damaged beyond all recognition, etc, etc...

Great.

So, I spoke to my driver and he said we needed to go to the GPO (General Post Office). We drove into the city and pulled up to this grand old building surrounded by many lush plants and the always constant traffic. I walked up to the building, saw a window that said "enquiries" and headed that way. Within a few minutes a man called on me and I explained that I was looking for a package that had been sent from the US. He then told me that I needed to go to the FPO (Foreign Post Office) in the even more congested part of Central Bangalore. Goody. Luckily my driver knew where it was (since the gentleman's directions were "St. Mark's Cross Road, near the State Bank of India, ask someone- Second floor" and actually those directions probably would have worked just fine~)

We headed over to the FPO and I walked up the stairs to the second floor (reminding myself that it is actually the third floor) and I entered a room that was filled with large burlap and cloth bags containing packages. They were everywhere, piled, tossed, and helter skelter. I stepped over a couple of bags to get to the desk that someone pointed me towards and approached a wary looking woman. I explained my predicament and she asked if I had the package number. Argh. Well, yes- but that would be in the e-mail that I had received from Webs. Did I think to write it down? Nope. Okay- she said that without the number I could look through this book... and she hands me a register book that is filled with page after page of handwritten entries. These are all of the packages that had been received in the last couple of months. Each day has 2-3 pages of entries. Fantastic. But, then she says, "You could also check here" and shows me a folder with some computer printed entries and low and behold I was the second one listed! That's me! I say and she eventually tells me that the package left there office on the 1st (one week ago) to go to my local post office.

Of course!

So, back to the car and we drive to the local post office (not the LPO!) and I walk in the door, a man looks up from his desk and says, "Ma'am, your package has arrived."

He knows me. Okay. Guess maybe I stand out or something. Anyway, I paid the import duty and brought my package home. While it took almost two hours, I was actually able to get my package without too much of a problem! The Indian Post works. And here is the result...

Package with the requisite heavy twine and sealing wax. It has been inspected.

Yarn!

Thank you Mary and Janice!!!!!

Now this is my last post before the Madness kicks in again. Yes, that's right, Round 3 of Sock Madness starts tomorrow. I have swatched with the lace yarn from The Knittery, have balled my yarn and I am ready to go. There are now 20 of us in each division (down from 50 or 60) and the first 12 done in each division will move on to Round 4. Wish me luck!