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The woman in the lime green hijab leaned across into the men's section of the crowded bus and told me to give her my wallet. She was balancing her torso on the horizontal metal bar that runs across the middle of Tehran's public buses to segregate the genders. Her arm reached towards me as I struggled to maintain my footing while scrabbling for coins to pay the ticket seller. In fluent English, the woman told me she caught a glimpse of a shiny, silver MasterCard when I opened my wallet. Such cards were banned in her country and she wanted to take a look. I'm sure there must have been a warning on a government website about handing your wallet over to strangers while travelling across developing nations. But this Cleopatra was hard to resist. Her headscarf was sitting so far back on her head that it pushed the boundaries of Iranian law. It revealed a permed hairstyle that glistened with caramel highlights. I couldn't tell whether she was 20 or 40, there wasn't a wrinkle on her silky smooth skin. Her hazel eyes seemed to blend in with her hijab; they cut straight through me as she revealed just a hint of a smile. What could possibly go wrong? I had spent three weeks backpacking through Iran, and by now developed a complacent level of trust. I was a little nervous when crossing over from Turkey, but the locals shattered every stereotype. Strangers had randomly paid for my meals at restaurants; and offered to guide me whenever I seemed lost. Even hitchhiking led to invites to dinner with extended families. Perhaps, though, I was taking one risk too many. As soon I handed my wallet over, the green hijab retreated deep into the women's side and was enveloped by a scrum of other Cleopatras. They pulled the black leather accessory apart, giggled and slowly caressed their fingers across the cards as if reading braille. An old Blockbusters video membership card I'd stupidly left in there drew more interest than my credit cards. Curious heads looked on, and it wasn't long before my wallet was on its own journey - passed towards the back of my bus and out of my sight. I closed my eyes, clenched the metal bar and took a few deep breaths. Was I the world's dumbest traveller? But I soon felt the leather nudge my skin. The green headscarf handed back the wallet; each card, note and coin in the exact same place as before.