Managing mailboxes or PO boxes in Mauritius

This is a very good topic. Beginning of this year I went to Australia to visit my family and friends. I asked my friend to make a test to send me a mail. He said how about I send you a birthday card? (of which my birthday is end Oct). He sent it in March but up to today, I still haven't received it. 😣

Last year when I moved into my house, I realized there is no street name, no Nr. of the road. So, I named my place and put it on Google. I always feel that I own the whole Grand Gaube, as that's the address written on my bills. Even my friend put that information, as well as my mobile nr. on the envelope, no one bothered to phone me or Google it.

And last time when I went to ABSA to update my address, I realized that I can't do it without modifying it with CWA or CEB first. Even banks are so rigid! And worst is the email address in their record has 2. One correct and one wrong. I couldn't comprehend how the system here is so terrible. I guess this is "Island Style"

I don't have any issues with mail delivery here. Ok, I can't have Amazon next day or even same day delivery anymore, but that's a small price to pay to live here.

Addressing here is not very precise, often with no house numbers or names or even street names sometimes. I live in Tamarin, and when I arrived, I visited the post-office and had a chat with the staff, telling them who i was and telling them where I lived. The postman was there and knew the area, so i described exactly where I lived. Now whenever I see any of the post-office staff or have to go in there, they greet me by name, and mail delivery is always spot-on.

So my advice would be to drop into your post-office when you arrive and introduce yourself. It sounds a bit crazy if you come from a big city or town in another country, but on this island, it works a treat.

Not too long ago after moving into our house, we received mail from overseas about a week after moving in. The postman, having done our route for many years and knowing who's who in the area, brought our mail as one would expect. However, with us being new to the area, he took it upon himself to have a pleasant little chat with me just to make sure of our names before handing the letters over. I appreciated that because there is a more interpersonal approach in Mauritius. Compared to the UK, where it took me nearly two years before the postman and I even wished each other and twice as long before having a polite chat, I'm very happy with the postal service here and glad to see the 'personal touch' approach hasn't changed.

In Quatre-Bornes, your postal code is on a street sign close to your house... if only you could find it.

I've lived in a couple of places that had a 24-hour guard station. That's really nice when you need something delivered. It's not their job, but they're so bored they won't object to receiving stuff for you occasionally.

In Flic en Flac, I lived on a street that didn't have a name in a house that didn't have a number. Thank goodness for map pins.

This is topic-adjacent:

Mail

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For receiving mail, I use TravelingMailbox.com.

$15 per month

Description from their website:

We receive your postal mail and scan the outside of each envelope. You view and tell us to open and scan the contents, shred the envelope, or forward it to you anywhere in the world! View your postal mail online in an easy to use interface or via our iOS or Android App.

My thoughts:

This service lets me move from place to place without having to change my postal address.

I have a bank account that lets me make remote deposits, so it's rare that I need the actual letter for anything.

If I recall correctly, it takes less than an hour to get a letter opened and scanned. I've never needed to talk to Customer Service.

The Android and desktop apps both work well.

I would be hard-pressed to do without this service.

Caveats:

DO NOT try to forward packages through this service unless you know what you're doing. I paid $200 for shipping only to have the package returned because I didn't know how to fill out a customs declaration. Use MyUS.com instead.

Packages

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For aggregating multiple packages into a single shipment, or packages from companies that won't ship to Mauritius, I use MyUS.com.

$9.99 per month

Shipping one thing from Amazon.com to Mauritius is super expensive, so when I need something, I buy everything I can think of and send it all together.

Description from their website:

For over 25 years, consumers around the globe have trusted MyUS to provide a simple, reliable way to shop online and ship their purchases worldwide. We deliver a streamlined and cost-effective shipping process and complete online account management to over 6.6 million members in 220 countries and territories, including Saudi Arabia, France, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Spain, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, India, Iraq, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Germany and Switzerland.

My thoughts:

I love this service. Over the course of a month I will send them packages from Amazon. They store them until I tell them to ship all of them together.

The worst part of the service is that you have to correct all of the prices for the items (for the Customs paperwork). If there is an efficient way to do that, I haven't found it yet. Assuming you're buying stuff on Amazon, you'll use the tracking number that MyUS show you to search through your recent orders on Amazon, then back up and open the invoice (on Amazon) and hunt down the price for the item, then go to MyUS and enter that price. It doesn't sound so bad, but it is a tedious process. Once you set a price for something, it's locked and the only way to change it is through Customer Service. Fortunately, their Customer Service is excellent.

Caveats:

Sometimes, you'll buy a "package of two" of something from Amazon. MyUS may count that as one item or two. It they say it's two items and you enter the price from the invoice, you will be declaring twice the cost. This can be super frustrating. Sometimes Amazon will ship part of your order along with a later shipment, so you may think the item got lost. Double check the tracking numbers to see if they all match. If they don't the shipment was split for some reason.

It can be a real headache trying to be certain which item is which sometimes. The descriptions are written using Harmonized System (HS) Codes (https://www.trade.gov/harmonized-system-hs-codes). HS codes are organized by the material the item is made out of. For example: "Mountings and Fittings of Metal: NESOI". It is both very specific and almost completely useless for figuring out which item it refers to. Sometimes you've just got to guess, e.g.: Male Shirts Cotton was the description for a woman's pajama set. Close enough, I guess.

MyUS takes pictures of the contents of every package. If you're completely at a loss to identify something, you can ask for the pictures ($3.50) and see what it is. I've done that a few times. If that's still not enough, you can ask them to take pictures of individual items by hand ($12, if I recall correctly). I've done that once.

I have had to contact Customer Service several times over the last three years. They're terrific.

Make friends with your mailman, so he knows who you are. Visit your local post office that sorts your mail. The mail people here have awesome memories. A sign on your letterbox also helps. You can just look up postcode on google for overseas stuff. If you are not home for a big delivery remind them to put a card/note in your mailbox so you can pick it up from the post office.