Do You Want to Drink Pussy Juice? - Saturday/Sunday, February 20th/21st

Soon we were in Yazd and it was time to meet the third host of the trip, Mohammad. He was an English teacher and I went straight from the bus station to his classroom to meet him.

Mohammed was a goateed, energetic little man and was almost certainly the inspiration for Ohmid Jalili’s Iranian shopkeeper character. Every word was pronounced with a flourish of limbs. It was hard not to smile when listening to him speak.

He was teaching until 9pm so I went out to do some sightseeing before nightfall. The old city was an enchanting maze of low slung, mud walled alleys. The weatherbeaten, heavy wooden doors betrayed the scars of age that couldn’t be patched by fresh applications mud. It had character of its own that I felt had been lacking from Tehran and to a lesser extent, Isfahan.

Yazd wind catchers - 5000 year old technology that's still in use today.

To get a good photo of the city at dusk I needed to go to the top of one of the traditional tea houses. I explained this to the proprietor of one and he duly showed me up to the roof. Not before we had taken several photos together together, of course.

I sort of know how a C list celebrity feels like now. Especially as I have absolutely no discernable talents to speak of.

I sat for over an hour listening to evening prayers in the shadow of the Masjed e Jemeh (a large, very beautiful mosque) and became friendly with a man on a roof a few houses down. He had a flock of trained pigeons and kindly sent them on a circuit that passed right by me for photo ops. Eventually it was dark and we warmly waved one another goodbye.

Back at Mohammad’s classroom, it turnd out the lesson had been inspired by my hitchhiking adventure. On the screen was a video of the famous hitchhiking scene from the 90s comedy classic Dumb and Dumber. “I like to teach how to understand movies and TV.”
He said he had also shown them scenes from the sequil.
“It wasn’t my favourite” I said. He shot me a hurt look.

I was invited to talk to everyone in the class and help them practice their English. After this has been exhausted we played 20 questions. I chose David Cameron but seemingly no one had heard of him. Not even Mohammad the English teacher. Oh dear, I thought, even Sayed the truck driver knew who he was.

The all male advanced English class turned up at 8pm. The lesson plan was to go to a traditional tea house and smoke Hukkah together. It certainly beats 20 questions.

And so we were accompanied by Masoud and Hameed to a traditional Yazidi tea house. A large open courtyard with a pool of water in the middle surrounded by carpeted lounging benches.
“Would you like to drink some Pussy Juice?” Asked a beaming Mohammed. “It’s a local speciality.”
I was too busy choking on my tea to reply. If this was an invitation to go whoring, it was certainly the least delicate I’d ever received.

After I had caught my breath he explained that water infused with Pussy Willow was on the menu. The literal translation from the menu was indeed Pussy Juice.

It seemed then, that Iran had an abundance of different kinds of Pussy on offer, given the events of the last few days. I duly ordered it and gave it a go. It tasted like homeopathic medicine. In fact, I think it actually was a homeopathic medicine.

Mohammad’s pupil Masoud then took me for a joy ride around town. Apparently the most popular channels in Iran are BBC Persia and another channel sponsored by ITV. “What’s your favourite programme?”
I asked. “Top Gear.”

It turns out that Britain had been quietly colonising the rich cultural heritage of Iran via the medium of Jeremy Clarkson. Now I understood why so many Brits were being refused visas. “Do Iranians think he’s funny?” “Yes. We were pretty angry when he got fired.” He wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about Chris Evans. “No one knows who he is. But Joey will be pretty cool.”

Masoud took me to his family home, built in the traditional style. It had stood roughly in this fashion for a millenium. On the roof I asked him why the two next door houses were complete wrecks. “Who do they belong to?”
“Jews that went to Israel in the 50s.”
“Why didn’t they sell them?”
“Jews never sell anything! They just buy!”

Sunday morning rolled in and instead of pussy, I was woken up by a cock. The loudest bloody cockerel I’ve ever heard in my life. Inially I thought he was in the room with me or had snuck jnto one of the prayer towers.

During my time with Mohammad I had noticed a slight aggressive streak in his demeanour. I sensed this was the result of an insecurity so over breakfast I probed him. It turns out he had hit some pretty hard times as the result of a number of failed business ventures. He had numerous debts and had sold his car to pay a loan shark.

The pain and exasperation were written all over his face. Yet he still was kind enough to take a complete stranger into his home and treat him to Hukkah (not hookers) and tea at a smart hotel. You could see that he was nearly at the end of his tether and but he still made the time to make sure I was looked after in his city.

It all made sense now and in wished there was something to do to help. Regrettably, there wasn’t.

24 hours had elapsed in Yazd and it was already time to go to my next destination. The eastern city of Kerman. There I would meet my Couch Surfing friend Shiva and we would take tea together. Shiva (a woman) had hitchhiked all over Iran and Armenia as a solo traveller. I was excited to meet this character.

Tomorrow, a moonlit stay in the desert Kaluts. A field of monolithic, wind shaped towers a day’s camel trek into the vast eastern desert expanse.

But until then I’m sitting next to my new, rather rotund friend Said. He’s an engineer (of course) and keen to share chocolate and his flavoured pumpkin seeds with me. He also has porn on his phone. I stop short of asking him to WhatsApp me a few choice vids. I’m not that desperate. Not yet.