Halfway between Samarkand and Bukhara, the old caravan road crosses a stretch of steppe that is flat, dry and almost empty, and in the eleventh century someone decided that a traveller crossing it deserved a proper stopping place. Rabati Malik, the Rabat of the King, was built in the 1070s by a Karakhanid ruler named Shams al-Mulk Nasr, on one of the main branches of the Silk Road. The caravanserai itself is now mostly collapsed, and what remains is a tall brick entrance portal, ornamented with carved terracotta, standing alone in the plain like the front of a theatre set.
Nearby is the sardoba, and this is the part that explains why anyone could live out here. A sardoba is a domed cistern, built over a pit to catch and store rainwater and the water brought by canal, and in a land with a tough dry summer it was as vital as a well. The domed brick chamber sits low and round, with steps leading down, and its thick walls kept the water cool. The caravans would arrive here at the end of a hard day, the animals would be watered, the merchants would sleep under the arches, and in the morning they would load up and go. It is easy to imagine, because the landscape has changed so little.
The ride here is on straight roads through the desert steppe, with the Nurata mountains a faint line in the north. Navoi, twenty kilometres away, is the nearest large town, and is where you should buy fuel and water. The road itself is good in stretches and rough in others, with trucks and the occasional herd of sheep to dodge, and sandstorms can bring visibility down in minutes. Spring is by far the best season, when the steppe is briefly green and covered in poppies. In summer the heat bounces off the asphalt.
Bring a hat, because there is no shade at the site, and some water. A stop of half an hour is plenty for the portal and the cistern, but the silence is worth lingering over. The Deggaron mosque in the ride title is a short drive away, and the old villages around the Zeravshan river offer shade, tea and fresh bread.