Meals Ready!

Today was one of those days!
I woke at 8 and had a cup of coffee while browsing blip when all of a sudden there was a bleep and the power went off, and stayed off with no back up generator. I'd planned on a bucket wash and washing my hair this morning but the lack of power meant no hot water and almost worse, no hairdryer!
So plan B, a quick wash, no more coffee :-( and yucky hair!
I then finished off the washing I'd had soaking overnight and went to hang it out, only to find it was raining.....! What! It doesn't rain here in February, ever. Foiled I decorated my room with hangers of wet washing!
Raja picked me up for breakfast and then, with a change to my normal routine I went to the post office to look into sending some clothes home in a parcel. I'd forgotten that when I came out I had loads of luggage allowance but have a lot less to go back. Part of the problem is that having brought two cases, their combined weights even empty take up a lot of the total.
We went yesterday to the main post office to find out what we needed to do. It wasn't a success as the post master told me I had to find the 6 or 8 digit HSN code for each item in the package. I'd never even heard of an HSN code but it turns out they are about import and export duty. There are about 30 different ones just for t shirts! I was pretty sure I didn't need those for a personal parcel of used clothes but he was having none of it. Google HSN code if you fancy feeling like Alice about to enter the rabbit hole.
Anyway I had decided to try another post office today and they were much more helpful with no mention of HSN codes, but it still took around two and a half hours which I will never get back.
They insisted on a whole roll of parcel tape on the package and poor Raja had to be the sender not me as someone had to attach a copy of an Indian ID to the parcel. Lucky I have him to help me and that he knows me well.
From there, we went for lunch, I reckoned he'd earned it. We went via Siva Cabs and saw Ignesh, the auto driver who used to take me from where I lived in 2007/8 to school, in the days before I met up with Raja. He hasn't a word of English, but looked after me really well. He was as always full of smiles, so it was good to see him. I confirmed my car back to Kovalam with Siva Cabs at the same time.
For lunch we went to the other half of this twin town, to Tirunelveli Junction and the Sri Janikaram Hotel. It's a local hotel rather than a large chain and I've stayed there several times. It's basic but clean.
It's a vegetarian hotel, so for lunch we had a South Indian Meal. These are something special, Thali is the closest we get. They cost 180 rupees each - £1.80. For that we got a bowl of soup then a circular plate, complete with banana leaf. 12 small dishes of various curries and sauces, a large and small popadom, a vadai, a chappati and as much rice as you can eat. Amongst the small dishes were a sweet laddhu and some paysan and some curd, which they use in the rice at the end of the savoury section. After that, came a tray with a small banana each, some ice cream and some paan, the latter I declined. I managed to eat most of the rest of the meal though.
As you drive around South India you see signs outside restaurants and cafes, saying Meals Ready. What I had was a 'meal' , they are what the local people eat. There's no choice except for veg and non veg and the dishes are bottomless, they come around constantly topping up the dishes and your plate until you have had enough. Meals usually start with soup and always end with a dessert. They are really good value, today's was expensive because it was a quality hotel but they normally come in around the £1 - £1.50 mark.
I got back to my room at around 2.00pm having given up on any idea of school, only to find the power was still off. Never the less, after about an hour of sorting and clearing, I went down to the shop to get a cup of tea and then I fell asleep on top of the bed for an hour or so.
I woke feeling much more myself, I do find dealing with Indian Bureaucracy stressful. Its a bit like "Computer day no!"
I hung my washing out as the rain was over and by the time I'd done some stuff for school, the power came back on at 5pm. Apparently it had been planned maintenance. They do have days like that quite regularly as well as unplanned outages, it's a lot better than it used to be though.
So my blip today, is quite unashamedly, me and my lunch, and dessert in the extras. The main picture was taken on my phone by Raja.