Motorcycling in India is an amazing experience. Anyone who’s traveled around this vast country on two wheels will talk about the heat, the noise, the colors… and of course, the crazy traffic. But, above all, they mention the gentle, polite, ever-curious people.

In the rush and hustle of well over a billion humans who speak more than 700 languages, India is a place where something surprising can happen any day. Here’s the story of one of those days…

A few years ago, my wife and I rode the southwest coastal road from Panjim to Kerala on a rented Royal Enfield Bullet 500 single. The Enfield was a jet black, kick-starting lump, but it is the bike of choice on the subcontinent. Late on the first day, we pulled into a roadside café and decided to stay the night in a nearby beach hut.

I parked the Enfield by the café tables, turned the key in the steering lock, put the key in my pocket, and, in the delightful cool of the evening, we went for a swim.

The next morning, asked to move the Enfield by the café owner, I made the horrible discovery that I’d gone swimming—doh!—with the key in my pocket. We searched the beach for hours, a feeling of doom creeping over us at the hopelessness of our task, at the enormity of losing a small key in the vastness of the Indian Ocean.

Back at the café, the owner—who spoke good English—said he could organize a “mechanic,” and, about two hours later (most things in India seem to have a two-hour delay), a man arrived on a tiny buzzing TVS—the ever-present 50cc moped of India—and motioned me to climb on. The dual seat was about as big as a paperback, but I squeezed on behind him, and we set off for the nearby hills.

After a short, but adrenaline-pumping ride, we arrived in a hillside village, teeming with children, goats, chickens, women in saris, and a smiling man with a rolled-up sack.

To my considerable surprise, he climbed up behind me—his sack clinking merrily—and, with him perched on the microscopic luggage rack, the three of us rode back to the café.

Here, the Enfield was surrounded by a crowd.

The word had got out. Something was going to happen, and foreigners were involved—moreover, a foolish Englishman and his wife.

After my moped experience, I was thrilled to be back in one piece, but my optimism soon disappeared when the mechanic’s sack disgorged three items: a rusty spanner, a huge screwdriver and an enormous hammer. He exchanged a few words with the café owner, lit a cigarette, walked to the Enfield, and—hammer in hand—casually placed the end of the screwdriver in the steering lock.

It was obvious his mechanical skills lay mainly in lock-smashing, and I instinctively jumped forward to stop him.

Before I could say anything, a small child, aged about 8, trailing a small dog on a piece of string, stepped out of the crowd and spoke to the café man. There was a rapid exchange in a strange language: “Child says have you lost key?” and, when I answered yes, “Child says what does key look like?”

When I said the key had three or four pieces of colored ribbon tied to it, the child dropped his string and shot off at a fast sprint. The mechanic, ever casual, sat down on the ground and lit another cigarette. The crowd buzzed. The dog whimpered. We waited.

Of course—this being India—a short while later (it only felt like two hours) the kid came back wearing a huge grin and waving my key. It turned out the smart little fellow had been walking his dog on the beach, found it and handed it in to the police.

Gratefully, I reached for my wallet and took out a 500 Rupee note (then, about $6). I handed it to the kid, who stared, dumbstruck.

The café owner asked me if I was sure I wanted to give him this, and, when I nodded, the kid snatched it out of my hand and sprinted off, possibly faster than he had before. I was told this was certainly more money than he’d ever had in his hand, and, for this, his father would work a week in the fields.

In the days that followed, exciting and interesting things happened to us on our Enfield Bullet, but I don’t think anything captured our mood better than the little boy with his dog, the ever-so-casual mechanic, and our lost-and-found key.

Rick Wheaton is an AMA member who writes about motorcycling and touring the world over.