Mumbai is always colorful and dynamic but if you're lucky enough to be in town for one of the city's major festivals you'll witness Mumbai erupting into glorious Technicolor. This two-day event takes place in the caves on the island of Elephanta, some 10 km from Mumbai harbor. The caves themselves, filled with carvings, sculptures

The Economist Intelligence Unit will publish a report -- The Austere Traveller -- in February that will show that business travelers' expectations are changing. Economic pressures mean executives now care less about luxury. Instead they are going back to basics. In 2009 we will be traveling less, for shorter periods and trading down in hotels, airlines and restaurants.

When Stefanie Rasimowicz finds out the pool at her resort hotel will be closed during her vacation, she faces the prospect of a ruined honeymoon. The hotel is apologetic, but offers her no alternative except to use another nearby pool. Can it do better? Should it? Q: My fiance and I booked our honeymoon at the Westin Aruba through a

Deepa, 40, was born in Mumbai, where she is now a banking technology consultant, as well as running a company that offers "offbeat sightseeing tours" of six Indian cities, including Mumbai, Delhi and Jaipur. Deepa's Mumbai tours take in the city's bazaars, backstreets and culture and her blog, Mumbai Magic, is a personal view of life in the city.

Deals Abound Amid Recession; Lower Gas Prices Than Last Year Will Mean More Car Trips And Fewer Flights Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of the summer travel season, but if you think this might be the year you don't sit in traffic because Americans decide to stay home during a recession marked by record unemployment and high foreclosure rates, think again.

The return of peanuts to the snack menu at Northwest Airlines this month has prompted a spasm of protests from travelers with allergies. The change comes four months after Northwest merged with Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and in the midst of a national salmonella outbreak involving Peanut Corporation of America.

Days after thick snow brought London to a standstill, the traditional drizzle has returned and it is business as usual in the bustling British capital. The pavement might be slippery with ice but the resumption of the bus and rail services means that you'll at least be able to move around the city. All airports in the south are operating normally

The return of peanuts to the snack menu at Northwest Airlines this month has prompted a spasm of protests from travelers with allergies. The change comes four months after Northwest merged with Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and in the midst of a national salmonella outbreak involving Peanut Corporation of America.

Blockbuster Inc. plans to rent and sell its movies and TV shows through TiVo Inc.'s digital video recorders in the second half of this year. The Dallas-based video rental company is playing catch-up to rival Netflix Inc., which already offers free instant streaming of its movies and TV shows through TiVo DVRs and other devices with its "Watch Instantly" service.

Scientists are to dig up ice dating back more than 100,000 years in an attempt to shed light on how global warming will change the world over the next century. The ice, at the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet, was laid down at a time when temperatures were 3 top 5 degrees Celsius (5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than they are today.

Ice cover on the Great Lakes has declined more than 30 percent since the 1970s, leaving the world's largest system of freshwater lakes open to evaporation and lower water levels, according to scientists associated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They're concerned about how the milder winter freeze may

A fossil from famous shale deposits in Canada was thought to be unremarkable, but a new study finds that it's actually the remains of a 500-million-year-old monster-looking predator. The Burgess Shale (a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia) has yielded exceptionally well-preserved fossils that present a

Blockbuster Inc. plans to rent and sell its movies and TV shows through TiVo Inc.'s digital video recorders in the second half of this year. The Dallas-based video rental company is playing catch-up to rival Netflix Inc., which already offers free instant streaming of its movies and TV shows through TiVo DVRs and other devices with its "Watch Instantly" service.

The dewy-eyed innocence of baby harp seals has prompted a rare burst of environmental activism in Russia that has moved Vladimir Putin to end their slaughter. The annual spring cull in the northern White Sea region has been scrapped after Putin condemned the clubbing of baby seals for their fur as a "bloody trade."

The astronauts aboard the linked shuttle-station complex took a congratulatory call from the White House on Tuesday and told President Barack Obama and schoolchildren all about their adventures in space. Obama got a big laugh in orbit and on the ground when he told the 10 space travelers that at a cruising speed of 17,500 mph, "We're glad that you are using the hands-free phone."

She may have ruled like a man, but Egyptian queen Hatshepsut still preferred to smell like a lady. The world may be able to get a whiff of that ancient royal scent when researchers complete their investigation into the perfume worn by Hatshepsut, the powerful pharaoh-queen who ruled over ancient Egypt for 20 years beginning around 1479 B.C.

The chiffon is exquisite, the 17th century Paris chateau grandiose in a new documentary about fashion designer Valentino Garavani. But not all is well in the House of Valentino. Valentino: The Last Emperor kicks off the Miami International Film Festival Friday. A treat of a film, it captures the Italian designer at the end of his spectacular

A French pole vaulting champion has run naked with his pole through the streets of Paris and posted the video on the Internet, hoping to draw attention to his quest for a new sponsorship deal. Romain Mesnil, who won a silver medal at the 2007 Athletics World Championships in Osaka, used to be sponsored by U.S. sports brand Nike but says his contract expired last year and was not renewed.

Travel can open your eyes to some of the world's most beautiful sights and buildings -- and to some of the ugliest. Web site VirtualTourist.com (www.virtualtourist.com) has come up with a list of "The World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments" according to their editors and readers. Reuters has not endorsed this list.

King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain will appear at the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival's gala ¡Viva España! celebration of Iberian cuisine and wines at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The event benefits Florida International University's School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and Fundación España-Florida. For information and

A prestigious medical journal on Friday accused Pope Benedict of distorting scientific evidence to promote Catholic doctrine by saying that condoms increase the spread of AIDS. The Lancet in an editorial called on the Pope to retract the comments made last week, saying anything less would be an immense disservice to the public and

King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain will appear at the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival's gala ¡Viva España! celebration of Iberian cuisine and wines at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The event benefits Florida International University's School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and Fundación España-Florida. For information and

In a sparkling new kitchen in the Biltmore Hotel's conference center, five teary-eyed home cooks compared tips for no-cry onion chopping. I heard it helps if you breathe through your mouth, one said. My mother told me to put bread on the cutting board while you do it, offered another. Lourdes Castro chuckled. 'I say, `Chop faster.'

After a recent chicken slaughtering workshop in the Redland, Justine Raphael took away the basics of butchering a bird. She also took away the chicken livers, hearts, gizzards, heads and feet. No one wanted them except me, said Raphael, who used the chicken bits for soup stock. More food for us, she added with a shrug.