Urgut is only a few kilometres from here, and if you ride into town on a market day you will understand quickly why the Silk Road needed places like this. The bazaar in Urgut is one of the biggest in Uzbekistan, sprawling, loud and full of everything from suzani embroidery and old coins to cattle and car parts. Suleimantepa, a low mound just outside, is one of the archaeological sites recognised as part of the Zarafshan valley corridor of the Silk Roads, the chain of settlements, forts and caravan stops along the river that fed Samarkand and Bukhara.
A tepa in this part of the world is a hill made by people: layer upon layer of mud-brick houses, walls and rubbish built on top of each other over centuries until a town becomes a mound. There is not much to look at in the way of standing walls, so come with imagination and patience. Stand on top, look north over the irrigated fields toward the Zarafshan, then south to the hills, and picture caravans trading silk, glass, horses and ideas between China, Persia and the steppe. Sogdian merchants from this valley were the great middlemen of that trade for centuries.
The riding around Urgut is a pleasant change from the flat cotton plains. The town sits where the valley meets the foothills of the Zarafshan range, and roads climb south into the mountains toward villages with walnut and apricot orchards and fast cold streams. Surfaces vary from fresh tarmac to broken patches and dust, and you share the road with Damas minivans, donkey carts and drivers whose relationship with lanes is flexible. Summer afternoons are hot, often well over thirty-five degrees, so the cool mornings of spring and autumn are better, when the orchards are blossoming or heavy with fruit. Police checkpoints are common in Uzbekistan; keep your documents to hand and stay calm and friendly.
Urgut has fuel, food and everything a rider needs, though fuel supply in Uzbekistan has historically been patchy and many vehicles run on gas, so fill up when you see petrol. Do not leave town without seeing the Chor-Chinor grove, a garden of enormous ancient plane trees around a spring and a mosque, where families picnic in the shade and the air feels ten degrees cooler. Samarkand is roughly an hour away, close enough to combine with Registan and Shah-i-Zinda in one day, but Urgut deserves its own slow afternoon with tea, fresh non bread and a plate of plov.