The Snake Catcher and Andy Kaufman

I woke up on Tuesday morning with a sore throat and chills and pulled the covers over my head. “Time to get up, honey, we’re in India,” said my travel companion. The prospect of driving 300 km over the rest of the Western Ghat mountain range didn’t feel appealing to me. Ah well. You only live once. I took a bunch of pills and decided to be open to what the day would bring.

We packed up the rickshaw and headed out. Today was purposely a long haul so we could make it to Goa and chill by the beach for a day or two. We ended up about an hour later in a town called Belagavi, whose name sounded strangely Italian.

Joe pulled the rickshaw over to double check our route options. About a minute later a guy pulled up beside us and started asking us where we were going. We must have looked lost, because within 3 minutes there were a bunch of school kids and a man conspicuously dressed in black who looked rather sage like and was carrying a long stick on his motorcycle.

There was a lot of debate about which of the three possible route options we should go for. As the debate continued, the first motorcycle guy let me know that the sage guy was the local Snake Catcher. “Really?” I asked. To prove it, the Snake Catcher opened up his motorcycle seat and pulled a bag out of it. He had a rat snake in his bag that he has caught that morning and proceeded to pull it out and then asked me to come and handle it.

Joe was protesting but the Snake Catcher was really quite charming so up onto the impromptu stage of a sidewalk I leapt. By then there were about 30 people watching the show. I have never handled a snake before and I wouldn’t necessarily seek out that experience on a regular basis, but it never hurts to try new things, I guess. The Snake Catcher started lecturing the crowd about how people shouldn’t kill snakes. So he definitely had an agenda, and was very appreciative of me helping amplify his message. The whole stop ended up taking 30 minutes or so, but that’s India. You never know what can happen.

We started driving again, completing the ascent of the Western Ghats and then started our descent. We stopped for lunch at a nice looking restaurant on the side of the road and proceeded to be served by the most interesting waiter we’ve met yet.

He was a Brahmin pastor who spoke 13 languages, and really impressed us with his knowledge of India. When he walked away after taking our lunch order, Joe said “Don’t you think that guy looks like Andy Kaufman?”. “Yes he sure does,” I responded. “He’s like the Indian version of him.”

Andy kept regaling us with his knowledge of India, suggesting temple after temple we should visit on our route. His eyes were full of life and joy. He was thrilled when we asked him to be in a photo with us, and stood and waved for quite a while as we drove away.

The rest of the drive to Goa was like being on a two hour long roller coaster ride down the side of a mountain, but was spectacular.

You never know what might happen on any given day, even if you sometimes feel like just pulling the covers over your head.Read more