On the road from Yazd to Esfahan, we stopped at yet another roadside diner that seemed to cater exclusively to tour groups being bussed in. The boys weren’t in the mood for it so we decided to check out the pizza joint the guys had spotted down the road.

On our way there, we passed a gym and a man got out of a car, clearly headed to pump some iron. Oscar said hello and asked if we could accompany him to the gym. The man smiled and motioned for us to follow.

I jumped at the chance to check out a place that is off limits to women in Iran and, of course, had to take a picture, especially when I spotted the guy in the grey wife-beater standing at the back. (Enjoy, ladies!)

At the pizza place, we were served what must be the Iranian version of pepperoni pizza. It had a nice crust and a pale sort of sausage on it. (I actually thought it was either tuna or sardines at first.) If it had a proper tomato sauce and some crumbled kebab, they could have nixed the Frankensausage and it would have been a better pizza. As it was, it was strange, but it wasn’t bad. We took the leftovers back to the restaurant, which Gareth promptly demolished.

Served with ketchup, of course.

The guys at the pizza place wanted photos with the boys so I took some of my own.

By the time we arrived in Esfahan, it was late in the afternoon so our entire itinerary for the day was scrapped and we were free to roam around until dinner.

Before we parted with the rest of the group, Dave and Zoe, also tired of the tourist-trap restaurants we were being herded to, volunteered my contacts to Gareth. They said that my contacts had pointed us to a very good restaurant in Tehran so that they were sure that they could help us out in Esfahan. Gareth then turned to me and put it on my shoulders to sort out the restaurant for the evening.

Out on the street, I scrambled to get in touch with Asghar. Before I could contact him, we got to talking to this man who used to work in Germany. He returned to Iran to care for his father who is afflicted with Alzheimer’s. He pointed out some restaurants to us on the map, as well as sports shops where Oscar could buy Iranian football jerseys.

We walked up and down the streets of Esfahan, in search of the elusive Iranian football jersey.

And found ourselves at a football stadium instead.

By evening, I had spoken to Asghar several times. He was about to board a plane for a business meeting somewhere, but SMS-ed me his top three restaurant choices. After cross-checking with other locals, the verdict for best local restaurant in town was unanimous: Shahrzad. Fortunately, it was also the restaurant Mustafa was supposed to take us to.

I joined the group for dinner, while Chad and Oscar hung back and ate a local chicken shop instead.

At Sharzhad, I sat at a smaller table with Dave, Zoe, Jan and Gareth. We decided to split three dishes between the five of us, seeing as the Iranian servings tended to be quite large.

When the group gave me a collective pat on the back for the restaurant choice, I called Asghar to thank him. He asked me to put the manager on the line because he wanted to pay for my meal. I tried to dissuade him but he was very insistent so I handed the phone to a waiter who, for reasons unknown, passed the phone on to Mustafa. I am not sure what they talked about but Mustafa later told me that he informed Asghar that we were a group of 2, discouraging Asghar from paying for the group. In the end, Asghar sent over some ice cream to our table, with profuse apologies for not being in town to entertain me.

Thanks for the yummy ice cream, Asghar!

Because the waiters didn’t speak English and none of us spoke or read Farsi (except for Evan), it was up to Mustafa to take our orders and bill us for our food. Since he was also organizing our transport to and from restaurants, he would include our taxi fare in the bill. He would collect the money from each of us and then settle with the restaurants and the cab drivers. This became standard practice throughout the tour.

That night, he charged our table 170,000 rials each. We had been averaging about 140,000 rials per meal and, this time, we only had three dishes and there were no cab rides to pay since we had walked from the hotel to the restaurant. When I pointed this out, Mustafa changed the figure to 125,000 rials each, claiming that he had forgotten that there were five of us at the table instead of four. His figures still didn’t add up but none of us were good at Math either.

After dinner, we walked over to the bridge, where we met up with Chad and Oscar.

[IMAGE: IMG_6750 | http://www.gaiolivares.com/.a/6a01538e92ee33970b016765404285970b-800wi]Si-o-se Pol or The Bridge of 33 Arches, also known as Allah-Verdi Khan Bridge, is one of eleven bridges in Esfahan.

The guys wanted to hit the shishas (qalyan). The use of it is supposed to be regulated in Iran but, as if by magic, someone provided them to us while we sat along the banks of the Zayandeh River.

I seriously don’t get it. I can understand if it’s in your culture to smoke it. But if it’s not, then it’s the equivalent of smoking menthols for me. I’d rather smoke a cigarette or a cigar, or something that isn’t flavored tobacco.

I spotted some girls sitting on their own so I quickly chatted them up so that I could introduce them to the guys. Soon, the guys in the group were flocking around the girls and this seemed to disturb some of the local boys, but they eventually apologized to Mustafa for creating intrigue and everything settled down before it could get out of hand.

Chad sends a message to the group that’s for us to know and keep to ourselves. 😉

But because there are strict regulations on acceptable social interaction between men and women, especially in public, especially between foreigners and locals, the night didn’t last very long and we were back at the hotel before midnight.

My favorite moment of the evening though was when an old couple came up to us to say hello. They couldn’t speak English but there were a lot of "Salaam"s and when I spoke a few words of Farsi, the woman took my hand and held it to her heart, which moved me. Before they left, I asked for a picture together.

Notice how she is still holding my hand.