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.
348 km from Karmana Shahri to Karmana Shahri, about 7 h 11 of riding. The stops in between: Deggaron Mosque, Chasma-i Ayub Khazira, Vardanze Settlement and Historic Centre of Bukhara. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Dabusiya is an ancient settlement on the Zeravshan, the river that rises in the Tajik glaciers, flows past Samarkand and Bukhara, and then dwindles into the sands before reaching the sea. Of the old fortified town, there are now mounds, a few ruined walls and a clear sense of where the river used to run. In its prime, around the sixth century, it lay on the route between the two great oases, and it was famous in the early Islamic period; the geographers write of its markets and of a decisive battle that was fought in the area in the eighth century. The Kasim Sheikh complex in the label belongs to the same shrine tradition as many sites near Navoi: a saint's tomb, a mosque and a small cluster of domes and arches that turned a hill into a pilgrimage place.
Read the complete Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex is where the day begins. Next is Deggaron Mosque.
In the village of Hazara, in the Zarafshan valley between Bukhara and Samarkand, stands one of the oldest mosques in Central Asia. The Deggaron mosque dates from the eleventh century, and from the outside it looks almost humble: a square, squat brick building with a cluster of low domes. Inside, it is a revelation, with massive brick columns supporting a forest of small domes and arches, the brickwork laid in patterns that play with light and shadow. It is a rare survivor of the pre-Mongol architecture of the region, and it forms part of the Silk Roads listing for the Zarafshan-Karakum corridor, inscribed by UNESCO in 2023.
Read the complete Deggaron Mosque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Deggaron Mosque comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.
North of Bukhara, the green irrigated oasis of the Zarafshan river spreads out in a patchwork of cotton fields, orchards, mulberry trees and villages, and the point named Chasma-i Ayub Khazira lies in this landscape, near the village of Khazara, between Vobkent and Gijduvon. Chashma-i Ayub, the spring of Job, is a name given to several holy springs in Central Asia, linked to the legend that the prophet Job struck the ground with his staff and water gushed forth in a time of drought. The most famous is in Bukhara itself, a mausoleum over a spring, and this site near Khazara may be another shrine of the same tradition, listed as part of the Silk Roads corridor of the Zarafshan valley.
Read the complete Chasma-i Ayub Khazira write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 82 km into the recorded legs you reach Chasma-i Ayub Khazira. Next is Vardanze Settlement.
North of Bukhara the irrigated land eventually runs into the sand, and on that edge lies Vardanze, the ruins of an ancient city that was once the capital of a local principality in the Bukhara oasis. Its mound of collapsed mud-brick walls and citadel rises above the fields near Shofirkon, and archaeologists have traced its history back more than two thousand years. It flourished as a trading post on the Silk Road and later declined, partly because the desert advanced and the water supply failed, and its ruins are part of the Zarafshan-Karakum corridor listed by UNESCO in 2023.
Read the complete Vardanze Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vardanze Settlement, about halfway. Next is Historic Centre of Bukhara.
Bukhara is a city that feels like a lived-in museum. For more than two thousand years it has been a trading town on the routes across Central Asia, and in the ninth and tenth centuries, under the Samanid dynasty, it was one of the great centres of Islamic learning, home to scholars such as Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna. Genghis Khan sacked it in 1220, but the Kalyan Minaret, built in 1127, survived, and legend says even the conqueror was impressed. Today the old city is a remarkable ensemble of mosques, madrasas, caravanserais and domed bazaars, and it entered the World Heritage list in 1993.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Bukhara write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Centre of Bukhara sits at 187 km, about halfway. Next is back through Vardanze Settlement.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vardanze Settlement write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vardanze Settlement comes up about 224 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chasma-i Ayub Khazira write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 263 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira. Next is back through Deggaron Mosque.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Deggaron Mosque write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Deggaron Mosque, late in the day. Next is Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 348 km.
Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex → Deggaron Mosque is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Deggaron Mosque → Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → Vardanze Settlement is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vardanze Settlement → Historic Centre of Bukhara is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Bukhara → back through Vardanze Settlement is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vardanze Settlement → back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → back through Deggaron Mosque is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Deggaron Mosque → Kasim Sheikh Architectural Complex is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.