Q: I've heard that north India is a great place to visit during spring for the festival of Holi. My friends and I want to spend a couple of weeks exploring various cities, including Delhi and Agra, and are hoping to join in the festivities. Are there travel companies offering such tours?
A: North India is wonderful to visit in spring - the climate is mild and Holi (it falls on March 20 this year) is celebrated with raucous outdoor festivities - there's lots of paint-throwing, great food, music and dancing. Keep in mind, however, that things can get quite rough. Crowds of people take to the streets armed with paint-filled balloons and pails of coloured water, and can get quite aggressive in their determination to let no one pass without a thorough drenching. Make sure your clothes cover your arms and legs, wear a hat to protect your hair and carry a large bottle of water to wash off stubborn stains. It's not a bad idea to put an extra set of clothes and a hand towel in a plastic bag in your backpack, just in case.
On the Go Tours has an 11-day "Taj and Raj" package from March 19 to 29, with stops in New Delhi, Agra, Shimla (a pretty colonial hill station in Himachal Pradesh), and Rajasthan's Shekhawati region. A tour of Old Delhi, marked for the second day of the trip to coincide with Holi, is one of the best places to watch the riotous merrymaking. If you want to get involved in street celebrations, go to Chandni Chowk, the city's iconic market, for pichkari (traditional "water guns") and tiny packets of gulaal (dyed herbal, rice or limestone powder). Don't forget to try the tasty snacks and traditional sweets sold here. The trip costs £599 (Dh3,528) per person, including most meals, transport and accommodation, two nights on a train, a guide, all sightseeing, entrance fees and passes to some sites and round-trip airport transfers. Also included is an elephant ride in Jaipur. Visit www.onthegotours.com/india/ for more information.
Bales Worldwide's luxurious Classic India is a 14-day comprehensive trip from March 11 to 24 through all the major cities - New Delhi, Udaipur, Varanasi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, and an extra day in Jaipur to enjoy Holi. Here, celebrations include folk dances, cultural peformances and a mela (fair). The land-only trip costs from £2,295 (Dh13,518) per person, with accommodation in five-star hotels, including the 300-year-old Deogarh Mahal in Rajasthan, air-conditioned transport, a tour manager and experienced guide, sightseeing, entrance fees to sites, and meals as mentioned in the itinerary. Visit www.balesworldwide.com for more details.
Do you have travel questions or queries? E-mail them to us at travel@thenational.ae
Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
On sale: Now
START-UPS IN BATCH 4 OF SANABIL 500'S ACCELERATOR PROGRAMME
Saudi Arabia
Joy: Delivers car services with affordable prices
Karaz: Helps diabetics with gamification, IoT and real-time data
Medicarri: Medical marketplace that connects clinics with suppliers
Mod5r: Makes automated and recurring investments to grow wealth
Stuck: Live, on-demand language support to boost writing
Walzay: Helps in recruitment while reducing hiring time
UAE
Eighty6: Marketplace for restaurant and supplier procurements
FarmUnboxed: Helps digitise international food supply chain
NutriCal: Helps F&B businesses and governments with nutritional analysis
Wellxai: Provides insurance that enables and rewards user habits
Egypt
Amwal: A Shariah-compliant crowd-lending platform
Deben: Helps CFOs manage cash efficiently
Egab: Connects media outlets to journalists in hard-to-reach areas for exclusives
Neqabty: Digitises financial and medical services of labour unions
Oman
Monak: Provides financial inclusion and life services to migrants
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch auto
Fuel consumption: 10.5L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh129,999 (VX Luxury); from Dh149,999 (VX Black Gold)
The five stages of early child’s play
From Dubai-based clinical psychologist Daniella Salazar:
1. Solitary Play: This is where Infants and toddlers start to play on their own without seeming to notice the people around them. This is the beginning of play.
2. Onlooker play: This occurs where the toddler enjoys watching other people play. There doesn’t necessarily need to be any effort to begin play. They are learning how to imitate behaviours from others. This type of play may also appear in children who are more shy and introverted.
3. Parallel Play: This generally starts when children begin playing side-by-side without any interaction. Even though they aren’t physically interacting they are paying attention to each other. This is the beginning of the desire to be with other children.
4. Associative Play: At around age four or five, children become more interested in each other than in toys and begin to interact more. In this stage children start asking questions and talking about the different activities they are engaging in. They realise they have similar goals in play such as building a tower or playing with cars.
5. Social Play: In this stage children are starting to socialise more. They begin to share ideas and follow certain rules in a game. They slowly learn the definition of teamwork. They get to engage in basic social skills and interests begin to lead social interactions.
Profile Idealz
Company: Idealz
Founded: January 2018
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Size: (employees): 22
Investors: Co-founders and Venture Partners (9 per cent)
The specs
Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed
Power: 271 and 409 horsepower
Torque: 385 and 650Nm
Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000
Last-16 Europa League fixtures
Wednesday (Kick-offs UAE)
FC Copenhagen (0) v Istanbul Basaksehir (1) 8.55pm
Shakhtar Donetsk (2) v Wolfsburg (1) 8.55pm
Inter Milan v Getafe (one leg only) 11pm
Manchester United (5) v LASK (0) 11pm
Thursday
Bayer Leverkusen (3) v Rangers (1) 8.55pm
Sevilla v Roma (one leg only) 8.55pm
FC Basel (3) v Eintracht Frankfurt (0) 11pm
Wolves (1) Olympiakos (1) 11pm