Beidha

Beidha, also known by the local tourist industry as "Little Petra", is no less fascinating than "Big Petra", just more concentrated. If anything it gives a better impression of how it must have felt for travellers arriving from the desert to find rest, shelter and water...as well as the other essentials of life.

The area has allegedly been inhabited since Neolithic times and there are more archaeological sites than you can shake a stick at. Today it seems arid, desolate and hostile, but I am not sure if that is just in comparison with the lush pastures of Europe, or whether it has lost the "milk and honey" during the course of the intervening millennia.

There is still subsistence agriculture alongside the inevitable tourist business, but the cisterns and other components of the irrigation infrastructure no longer function. When you see trees sprouting from rocks you know there has to be water somewhere, but I am constantly baffled by the battles which have raged since Abraham over this barren wasteland.

The inevitable locals posing and doing their best to look ethnic, fiddling around with the same piece of wool, carrying a baby goat; an image somewhat marred by the mangy anorak and chain link fencing!