S A S Travel Tours

As the main tourist gateway to Petra, WADI MUSA is an anomaly, a modern southern Jordanian town given an unfamiliar twist with lots of signs in English, a huge number of hotels and a noticeable diminution in the usual hospitality towards foreigners. In sharp contrast to the rest of Jordan, where decency and respect are the unswerving norm, Wadi Musa shows a distressing tendency towards rip-offs, wheedling and outright hassle – the last of these directed particularly at women. Businesses and individuals all too often overcharge and under-deliver. It’s a seedy little place, run with just one aim in mind: to milk its world-famous cash cow dry.There’s precious little to do. But then again, after a day of hard walking most visitors aren’t looking for rip-roaring entertainment anyway: shopping, eating – especially the hands-on Petra Kitchen experience – or sitting around in a Turkish bath is about most people’s limit. At the time of writing, plans were afoot to create an artisans’ quarter in Wadi Musa’s historic quarter Elgee (or Elji), a cluster of restored stone cottages behind the main mosque in the town centre. It’s unclear what this might comprise, but the area may be worth a stroll when you visit.