To save me from lugging my hand luggage around with me I decided to post all the things I wanted to take home but didn’t have room for. This mainly comprised of my winter gear, jumpers and a jacket along with an abundance of multinational souvenirs such as Japanese coffee mugs and Cambodian football shirts that I had accumulated over the past 7 months. In total for this first of two despatches I had about 20 K.G’s of belongings to ship back.
Sending them home was surprisingly easy. I took the goods to a city centre located ‘China Post’ office (the official national postage company of China). When there a lovely Chinese lady at the counter made me a cardboard box and gave me a form to fill out. I filled an extra large box to the top with my clothes and souvenirs, then I wrote the sending and receiving address and was pretty much done. You don’t need to show your passport to post internationally, just your sent from and recipient’s address.
The postage form that they give you to fill in is in two parts and has four carbon copies underneath that need to be legible so when writing remember to press on hard! firstly, tick which method you would like to post by. The form is bilingual in English and Chinese and you can either choose by air or by cargo ship. Air take around a month, Cargo ship on average will take 3 months back to the West but is considerably cheaper. As I’m in no hurry to be reunited with my winter wear in summer I obviously chose the cheaper three month option. After choosing this, you fill in the required names and addresses. You fill in the recipients address in English (international language of the world) and the local dispatched from address in Chinese. I copied my Chinese address from my phone which helped remind me how to write each obscure character. If you cant write your Chinese address in Characters then I suggest asking your boss or friend to text you your address in Chinese to you, you can then copy it down by looking at your phone character by character. It may also be useful to use your train Chinese app too as this will show you how to write each character stroke by stroke and hopefully teach you a few in the process! Alternatively you could just show your phone to the postage staff and have them kindly write it for you.
Once the address is set, hand it to the nice staff, they will then way your package, charge you the fee and your done. My cargo ship posted parcel in a large box weighing approximately 20 K.G’s cost me 374 RMB (around $60 U.S or £37 Sterling).
Using China post is the most cost effective way i can think of to sending your stuff home separately and is excellent because as a traveller you will find that you do accumulate a lot of possessions on your adventures and posting them back enables you to keep travelling light. Remember that many budget airline companies charge on average and extra 200- 300RMB to travel with a 20 K.G suitcase. Never mind having to carry all of that unnecessary stuff around with you! As a case study. I am preparing to go home this summer via over ten countries and have already booked 6 flights. Should I have to take my luggage with me the extra cost and burden would be huge and the trip would just not be worth it. Posting your stuff back in advance is a great way to allow you to travel on just hand luggage from country to country freely and easily. Which is exactly what I intend to do!
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