Are you a horror and mystery lover, or do you enjoy mysterious stories about supernatural powers and paranormal activities? Can you feel the thrill when you imagine the dreadful incidents about spirits? If your answer is yes, Welcome! You have come to the right place. It is a sign of an invitation for you to experience some mysterious places in an ancient country situated in the Himalayas, Nepal. The country’s origin is precisely not known, and while we might be experiencing the modern world, Nepal still today has many, many untouched remote places yet to be discovered.
And now, dear reader, we present to you 10 mysterious places in Nepal. None of the incidents that occurred in these spooky places can be considered facts or myths as these are the experiences of people who visited these places. Let’s get started.
Nepal is the home to the world’s tallest mountain Mt. Everest which is a significant attraction for mountaineers worldwide. Every year, more than 35000 tourists worldwide experience the gigantic mountain. In 1924, an English mountaineer, Andrew Comyn Irvine, participated in the 1924 British Everest Expedition to Mt. Everest. Irvine and his friend George Mallory were climbing Everest for the first time. After some climbing time, Irvine and Mallory disappeared when they reached Everest’s northeast range. The last time people saw them was a few hundred meters away from the summit.
For years and years, their family and friends tried finding them on the Everest, and after hundreds of unsuccessful attempts, in the year 1999, rescuers found Mallory’s body. However, Irvine’s body was never found. The mysterious part of the story is that the mountaineers who attempt to climb Mt. Everest even today claim that The spirit of Andrew Irvine haunts Everest. They say that the spirit of Irvine visits the Everest climbers and motivates them not to give up and make it to the top. Many believe that the soul is not satisfied that he could not make it to the top of the world and therefore wants other mountaineers to do it.
The far west of Nepal is one of its most remote places, and talking about Raniban, it is a small village situated in the distant western district of Nepal called ‘Ascham’. ‘Raniban’ translates to Queen forest in Nepalese, where ‘Rani’ is Queen and ‘ban’ is Forest. The village was named ‘Raniban’ after the former Queen of Nepal, who frequently visited the place to have a peaceful time. The Queen used to dwell in the forest for hours and hours without any time boundary as the place was genuinely captivating. The sunrise, sunset, and mountain range one can see from the hills of Raniban is simply mesmerizing. Nevertheless, no local person dares to visit Raniban. Despite its fascinating beauty, Raniban is more popular among the people of Nepal as a haunted forest.
According to locals, they can hear a girl crying and screaming in the forest near a giant tree at night and sometimes even mid-day. Some people who visited Raniban, neglecting what the locals say about the forest, said they saw a girl alone roaming in the dark forest. As per the police, a girl was brutally murdered after being raped nearby Raniban. Additionally, the shocking truth about the incident is that after a day, there was the dead body of the culprit hung in the same giant tree.
Sundarijal is a village 17.6 km far from the Tribhuvan international airport in Kathmandu. It is one of the most popular places to get away from Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Sundarijal offers a waterfall (Okhreni Sundarijal), cliffs, a river (Bagmati river), and green forests. The place is trendy for canyoning, especially in the summer. In the daytime, people visit Sundari Jal with their friends and family and spend time having fun in the water. Yet, after the dusk, nobody dares to stay even a moment in Sundarijal.
Every year, people die drowning in the river while swimming and falling off the cliffs of Sundarijal. On 23 July 2017, a 25-year-old youth was found dead by the local police after missing while swimming, as per the national newspaper, The Himalayan Times. Similarly, a missing person from Sundarijal was found dead in Nuwakot’s river on 15 September 2017, as per the national newspaper My Republica. According to the local villagers, many people died while swimming in the river, trying to get out but failed. They also say that the river drowns swimmers because the spirit of the dead people haunts the river.
Thus, people avoid staying there till dusk because of the higher death rates in the darkness and nighttime compared to the daytime. Hence, after the evening, visitors seldom stay there.
The now ‘Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal’ was once ‘the Kingdom of Nepal’ until 2008. On 28 May 2008, the constituent assembly of Nepal cancelled the 240-year-old monarchy and declared the country the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. The most saddening incident in the country’s history took place in The Royal Palace of Nepal. On 1st June 2001 royal massacre of Nepal occurred at the Narayanhiti Palace, which is the former residence of the Nepalese monarchy. In the carnage, 10 people, including the then king Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, were killed in a royal family reunion that night.
After the night of the royal massacre, royal guards and the caregivers of the palace share their paranormal experiences in the palace. The guards say that they hear the horrifying sound of gunshots and people crying at night and also feel the presence of someone around them. The people who have experienced these paranormal activities in the royal palace often say that the soul of the late royal family members still haunt the place and ask for justice. Nobody knows what happened that night, and it still is a story of the greatest mystery in the history of Nepal.
Experiencing unusual supernatural powers in haunted places might not sound surprising to you. But how about mysterious paranormal activity in a religious place? The next place you are about to learn is a cryptic spiritual place called ‘Devghat’. Devghat is a town located in central Nepal on the Seti Gandaki and Krishna Gandaki rivers. It is one of the famous religious and cultural centres located in central Nepal.
But since the local police found a skull buried underground in July 2009, the visitors and locals started observing four mysterious ladies setting fire to themselves and dancing on the bank of a river in Devghat. The locals added that the ladies seem to perform a ritual. However, Hindu mythology considers Devghat as one of the holiest places for Hindu gods. And this fact does not stop Hindu pilgrims worldwide from visiting the place.
The longest highway of Nepal, ‘East-West Highway’ or ‘Mahendra Highway’, comes under the Terai territory of Nepal with dense forest with no presence of human residents miles away around the midsection of the highway. The highway elongates from Mechi in the east to Bhimdatta in the west. Passengers of buses and other vehicles travelling in the nighttime often hear mysterious voices of women crying when they reach the middle of the dense forest on the highway. Some passengers who rested in the middle of the forest proclaim to see a lovely girl with perfect teeth looking at them and smiling.
No travellers wish to travel on the highway at nighttime, especially alone.
In Hindu culture, after the death of a person, the dead body shall be burned and not buried. Hence, the Hindu people residing in Kathmandu or around Kathmandu take the dead body of their Hindu relatives to Aryaghat to perform the death ritual or the ‘antimsanskar’. Aryaghat is specially designed to burn dead bodies, and it’s situated on the banks of river Bagmati inside the Pashupati area, a few minutes away from the famous Pashupati temple. The temple has been one of the world heritage sites since 1979 AD.
The Hindu pilgrims do not just visit the temple while the daytime but also at night. Unlike the day, at midnight, the visitors often encounter a strange feeling of someone’s presence even while sitting alone around Aryaghat. Spirits are said to roam around the bank of the river, ghat, and the forest nearby until the antimsanskar, or the death ritual, is performed strictly.
Another road story! In the centre of Nepal lies this route of transportation, ‘Mugling Narayanghat Road’. Like the east-west Mahendra Highway, this route is also built in the forest. The locals suggest travellers not to travel alone at night on this route. Although the travellers who travel with their partners also share paranormal experiences they faced while passing the road. Experienced paranormal activities like strange human-like structures falling at your vehicle, beautiful girls asking for a lift at midnight, and women with toes facing backwards running after one’s vehicle in Mugling Narayanghat Road.
According to local police, the place was once a scary place where crime and brutality would often occur. In addition, the police also found dead bodies of humans from the forest on either side of the road.
Ranimahal came to light only after social media posts and movies based on the palace. Ranimahal is regarded as the Taj Mahal of Nepal as General Khadga Samsher Rana made it for his wife after her death. In 1887, Khadga Samsher was assigned as the Western Commander in Chief of Palpa and had to leave his royal life to work as the Commander in Chief. Everything was going fine in the lives of the Commander and his family until one day, in 1892, he found his dearest wife, Tej Kumari Devi, dead. Tej Kumari Devi was the youngest among his wives, and he valued her greatly. The death of his most beloved wife left him miserable. Hence, the Commander decided to build a palace after his late wife on the banks of river kali Gandaki. Commander named it ‘Ranimahal’. Many Hindu people used the riverbank nearby as a ‘ghat’ (a special place to burn dead bodies). Hence the Commander named the ghat ‘Ranighat’.
Khadga Samsher Rana, after 10 years, left the country and fled to India in 1902 with his entire family, leaving Rani Mahal. The abandoned palace slowly attracted people’s attention after the local people started observing the presence of a woman’s soul, which they considered the soul of the late Queen, ‘Tej Kumari Devi’. According to the local people, they could only see the back view of her body. She was a little chubby and wore a white sari and red bangles and had thick plated black hair. Nobody has ever seen the face of the woman, but many visitors and locals have experienced paranormal activities in the palace.
Yardi pul is a bridge situated in Pokhara which connects two districts, Pokhara and Baglung highway. People do not travel through the Yamdi bridge at night as there are many incidents when people encounter the soul of a girl asking for a lift to them. Those new to this experience do not bother giving a ride to the girl, and once they reach anywhere between Yardi and Simpani, the girl disappears. Thus they come to know they encountered a ghost. Besides, many drivers complain that the bend in the road looks like a straightway. Hence, many accidents occur on the road. Additionally, the drivers like to carry bangles while driving through the bridge as they believe that having a bangle might protect them from seeing any evil spirits.
As per the professional trekking experts in Nepal, the above are the scariest and most haunted places in Nepal that you should know about. Thank you for reading this blog on “Mysterious Places in Nepal”.
