Well the last stop in our world trip was the famous desert resort of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. I must admit, we were a bit intimidated with the news reports of temperatures nearing 50 degrees centigrade!! Lucky for us, they topped out at around 43 degrees during our stay.

Now when the temperatures get that hot AND you normally live in a Swiss mountain resort like Zermatt, then you simply melt when you are outside for any length of time. We never ventured too far away from water and for the first two days we spent the entire afternoon with the kids at the Wild Wadi waterpark adjacent to the hotel. We had chosen to stay at the Jumeira Resort Hotel Mina A’ Salam with its amazing, captivating view of the Burj Al Arab - reportedly the only 7 star hotel in the world. The hotel resort was connected by water canals and you used small boats to go to the different parts of the resort.

Our hotel was much more “children friendly” than the Burj Al Arab and the service was nothing like anything to be found in Switzerland. When we first made our way to the pool, the security guard informed us that the towels would be brought to us. We should simply sit back, relax and let ourselves be spoiled, which is exactly what we did. They not only brought us our towels but also all of our drinks were served together with a large ice bucket to keep everything chilled. They would periodically bring us fresh cut fruit on sticks, small ice lollies and would occasionally come by with wet towels that had been chilled together with a cold spray. We had never seen anything like it!

The water park was just too much fun for all of us and you didn’t feel the heat at all when you were in and out of water the whole time. I had to even try and keep up with the kids, as we were all knee boarding on the wave ride! In the evening we made our way into the Souk Medinat Jumeira, which is a very exclusive shopping mall modelled after the old Middle Eastern open markets. I found my way to the watch store, Rivoli, where they sold Carl F. Bucherer watches. I couldn’t help but make a couple of photos. It wasn’t hard to find good places to eat with the choice of some 26 different restaurants within the resort itself.

We all had very mixed feelings as we prepared for the late night departure back to Switzerland. My noble companion, the TravelTec, had kept perfect time throughout our world trip, as well as enabled us to keep track of plane times, arrivals as well as cross-country telephone calls. Dubai has been the perfect end to a wonderful adventure that all of us shall cherish for years to come.