CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Dushanbe it runs 600 km to Dushanbe; allow about 11 h 29 of riding. It goes by way of Zoli Zard, Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin, Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery and Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Dushanbe means Monday, and the name comes from a village market that took place on that day, long before the city arrived. Today Dushanbe is the capital of Tajikistan, a city of nearly seven hundred thousand people in a broad valley beneath the Gissar mountains, laid out on wide, tree-lined avenues with white marble buildings, fountains and parks, a Soviet creation with a distinctly Persian soul. The Tajik language is a form of Persian, and the poets of the region, Rudaki and Ferdowsi among them, are national heroes, whose statues stand in the city.
Read the complete Dushanbe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dushanbe is where the day begins. Next is Zoli Zard.
Danghara lies in the south of Tajikistan, in the province of Khatlon, on the broad, hot plain between the Hissar mountains and the Panj river, which forms the border with Afghanistan. The point called Zoli Zard sits just outside the town, and the name, which means yellow water in Persian, probably refers to a stream or spring in the loess hills. The region is full of such sites, and many of them belong to the long Buddhist, Zoroastrian and later Islamic history of Bactria.
Read the complete Zoli Zard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zoli Zard comes up about 91 km into the recorded legs. Next is Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin.
Danghara is a small town in the Khatlon region of southern Tajikistan, best known in the country as the home town of the president, Emomali Rahmon, and the road to it is accordingly one of the better ones in the region. The town lies in a broad valley surrounded by low, bare hills, with fields of cotton and wheat watered by irrigation canals. The Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin, a mausoleum near the town, is a local shrine, a place of pilgrimage and prayer that belongs to the long tradition of saints' tombs across Central Asia. It is among the sites linked to the Cultural Heritage of Ancient Khuttal, the medieval principality that once flourished in this region and that Tajikistan has proposed for UNESCO listing.
Read the complete Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin. Next is Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery.
In the Vakhsh valley of southern Tajikistan, near the city of Bokhtar, once called Qurghonteppa, a low mound of earth in the fields hides the remains of a Buddhist monastery from the seventh and eighth centuries. Excavations at Ajina Tepa, which means the hill of the demons in local tradition, revealed a complex of courtyards, cells, corridors and stupas, built of mud brick and decorated with paintings and clay sculptures. The most spectacular find, uncovered in 1966, was a giant reclining Buddha, around thirteen metres long, depicting the Buddha entering nirvana.
Read the complete Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery, about halfway. Next is Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal.
Khuttal was a medieval kingdom in the south of what is now Tajikistan, centred on the fertile valleys between the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, and it flourished as a crossroads of trade and culture between Central Asia, Iran and India. The region's heritage includes the ruins of palaces, towns and religious buildings, such as the citadel of Hulbuk, near Vose', a royal residence from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, with richly decorated walls, and the town of Kulob, with the mausoleum of the fourteenth-century Sufi scholar Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani. Several of these sites have been nominated together for UNESCO recognition.
Read the complete Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal sits at 223 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery comes up about 414 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 506 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin. Next is back through Zoli Zard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zoli Zard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zoli Zard, late in the day. Next is Dushanbe.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dushanbe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 600 km.
Dushanbe → Zoli Zard is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery → Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal is 118 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal → back through Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery is 115 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ajinatepa Buddhist monastery → back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 92 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Zoli Zard → Dushanbe is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.