My Friend’s R15 Was Already in Muglin

It was a ride we almost didn’t take; our plan for Bandipur wasn’t even confirmed until after 7:00 PM that night.

Me with the R15 in 2016 in Saptakoshi Beach, circa 2016

We left Kathmandu at 8:00 PM, headed to Bandipur. Four of us, two bikes, my RTR 200 with Sagun, Paras on his green R15 with Ashesh.

AI Enhanced image from one of our other rides

The rain started at Naubise, 24KM in. By Malekhu, it had been chasing us for hours, drowning the road, blurring the headlights, stretching every corner into forever.

I led on my RTR, my friend trailed on his R15.

It was always the same: I’d cut ahead, Paras would catch up 15 minutes later. But that night, the road felt like it was watching us.

AI Enhanced, Me riding my RTR 200, circa 2018

We were closing in on Muglin.

Near Kurintar, the valley opened. The Manakamana cable station flickered into view.

An ambulance flew past on a left corner.

The Highway at night

I glanced at my meter. 11:47 PM. 73 KMPH. The unease had already begun. The road was empty. We followed closely.

Minutes passed, and the curving bends were as smooth as butter, while the ambulance went out of our view.

Photo by Alejo Reinoso on Unsplash

It was then that it happened; we saw her.

Walking. Not on the asphalt. Not on the gravel. She moved through the bushes. Yellow kurta. White scarf. Though Sagun swears she wore all white.

Either way, her clothes were dry. Bone dry. Even as the rain soaked us to the skin.

12:02 AM. My meter confirmed it. I joked about her chasing us, and Sagun pleaded with me not to joke like that, but my chest had turned to stone.

We sped around the final car just as a truck came at us from the other direction, narrowly avoiding the start of a massive traffic jam.

A few bends later, lights. A town.

A petrol station with a high roof. Rain was still shimmering. I braked hard, hoping for cover.

Overshot it by 50 meters, swung a U-turn, and pulled in.

The staff thought we were headed back toward Kathmandu.

The ambulance was already there—the same one.

Inside, a German NRN. Pale, smoking. He told us not to head back.

They had seen her, too, “it was a Kichkandi”, he said.

Wearing all white. Standing at the cliffside, facing the wall, inches from the rock, unmoving. The time on their dash. Exactly 12:00 AM.

We explained that we were behind them and we had just seen her at 12:02, walking. He said he was back in Nepal for his sick mother. Maybe it was worse, given he was hurrying in an ambulance.

He handed us German cigarettes, lit one, and exhaled slowly.

We waited. Paras’s R15 had green lights on the engine cover. Impossible to miss. But it never came. Only one grey Maruti van passed. Probably because of the traffic jam just up the road, we thought. We were facing the road the entire time.

The ambulance refueled and left.

Minutes later, my phone rang. “I’m already in Muglin,” Paras said.

Impossible. We pushed forward.

Minutes later, the road opened. Kurintar cable station. The same glimpse. The same valley.

Our stomachs dropped. We had already been here. Yet we were back again.

It sank in slowly. “Didn’t we pass this point already?” I asked. “We did, Mama,” Sagun said, fear in his voice.

I couldn’t push past 40KMPH after that. Every bend felt heavier.

“No matter what happens, Mama, do not stop”, Sagun pleaded behind me.

We prayed for headlights to break the silence. Two trucks finally came from the opposite side. Only then did we breathe.

We reached Muglin shaken, drenched, alive.

We told Paras about what happened, and the traffic jam we narrowly missed, and about the German guy, and what Paras said shocked us to the core.

“There was no traffic jam.”

The next afternoon, on the way back, we searched. From Kurintar to Malekhu, there was no petrol station with a tall roof. Nothing.

Only the cigarettes in my pocket.

And in the back of my mind was this question: Did I lead the road? Or was I following something that wasn’t really there?

Sagun would later find a job in Bandipur, and he made countless trips to KTM and back. But he could never find that petrol station.