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.
A 337 km round trip from Kogon Shahri - roughly 5 h 15 in the saddle. On the way it passes Paikend Settlement, Amul Settlement and back through Paikend Settlement. It crosses from Uzbekistan into Turkmenistan - carry ID and check the toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Bahauddin Naqshband died in 1389 in the village where he was born, a short ride from Bukhara, and the Sufi order that bears his name went on to spread across Central Asia, India, the Ottoman Empire and beyond. The Naqshbandi order emphasised silent remembrance of God and living a spiritual life within the everyday world, and its founder's tomb became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Central Asia, so much so that locals sometimes call it the Mecca of Central Asia. The complex, with its mosques, minaret, courtyards and the tomb itself, was largely built in the sixteenth century under the Shaybanid rulers and restored in recent decades.
Read the complete Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex is where the day begins. Next is Paikend Settlement.
The ancient city of Paikend lies in the desert on the edge of the Bukhara oasis, in Uzbekistan, and it is so old that the Silk Road was only one chapter of its story. Early writers called it the city of merchants. It stood on a major route between the Zarafshan river and the Amu Darya, near the sands of the Kyzylkum, and it was a fortified trading town from the early centuries BC, with a citadel, a main town and a market district, at its peak in the early Islamic period. It declined after the eleventh century, as the river shifted and Bukhara took the trade.
Read the complete Paikend Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paikend Settlement comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Amul Settlement.
Amul was the old name for the crossing that later became Türkmenabat, and the settlement sits only six kilometres from that modern city on the Amu Darya, the river the ancients called the Oxus. It is a flat, dusty place of low mounds and eroded walls, and you might drive past without noticing. What it marks is a ford on one of the great Silk Road routes, where caravans coming from Merv in the southwest met the river before heading on toward Bukhara.
Read the complete Amul Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 177 km into the recorded legs you reach Amul Settlement. Next is back through Paikend Settlement.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paikend Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Paikend Settlement, late in the day. Next is Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex. That is the ride.
Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex → Paikend Settlement is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Paikend Settlement → Amul Settlement is 99 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Amul Settlement → back through Paikend Settlement is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Paikend Settlement → Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.