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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
445 km from Khovaling to Khovaling, about 8 h 29 of riding. On the way it passes Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin, Manzaratepa, Shahristoni Zoli Zar and Shahrtepa. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
In the south of Tajikistan, in the hot valleys of Khatlon that lead toward the Afghan border, a mound of clay brick holds the ruins of a Buddhist monastery. Khishttepa, near the town of Mu'minobod, was a monastic complex in the early Middle Ages, probably in the seventh and eighth centuries, when Buddhism still flourished in the lands along the Amu Darya, or Oxus, the river that now marks the border. The remains include walls of mud brick, vaulted rooms and, in their day, painted walls and clay statues, of which only traces survive. Central Asia was a place where Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and later Islam met, and the monasteries of Bactria, as this region was called, sent monks and ideas along the Silk Road to China.
Read the complete Khishttepa Buddhist temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Khishttepa Buddhist temple is where the day begins. 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.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin comes up about 85 km into the recorded legs. Next is Manzaratepa.
Tepa means mound, and in southern Tajikistan the plains are dotted with them: hills built up over centuries from the remains of mud-brick towns, each layer burying the one before. Manzaratepa, near the town of Vose' in the Khatlon region, is one of these ancient settlement mounds, part of a network of sites in the fertile valleys between the Panj and Vakhsh rivers that were inhabited from the Bronze Age through the Kushan and early Islamic periods. Archaeological work has revealed traces of fortifications, houses and ceramics, and the sites are part of Tajikistan's long, rich and little-known history along the Silk Roads.
Read the complete Manzaratepa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 168 km into the recorded legs you reach Manzaratepa. Next is Shahristoni Zoli Zar.
Down in the far south of Tajikistan, in Khatlon province, the land flattens into the wide floodplain of the Panj, the river that forms the border with Afghanistan. The site named Shahristoni Zoli Zar lies in this country, some eighteen kilometres from Farkhor, and it is one of many ancient settlement mounds scattered across the region. Southern Tajikistan was part of ancient Bactria, later the heartland of the Kushan empire, and the fields here have yielded Buddhist and early Islamic remains. A shahriston, in the old local sense, was the inner walled town, and the name suggests that this mound once held a proper urban core.
Read the complete Shahristoni Zoli Zar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shahristoni Zoli Zar, about halfway. Next is Shahrtepa.
Shahrtepa lies in the lowlands of southern Tajikistan, in Khatlon province, within sight of the Panj river and the Afghan hills beyond. The word tepa means a mound, and it is the right word: a mound that has built up over centuries as one settlement was layered over another, in the Bactrian country that Alexander crossed and that later fed the Kushan empire. A Buddhist temple site is linked with this area, a reminder that this was once a place where monks, merchants and caravans met on the way between India, Central Asia and China.
Read the complete Shahrtepa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shahrtepa sits at 179 km, about halfway. Next is back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shahristoni Zoli Zar write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar comes up about 244 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Manzaratepa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Manzaratepa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 275 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Manzaratepa. 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.
back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin, late in the day. Next is Khishttepa Buddhist temple.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Khishttepa Buddhist temple write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 445 km.
Khishttepa Buddhist temple → Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → Manzaratepa is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Manzaratepa → Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shahristoni Zoli Zar → Shahrtepa is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shahrtepa → back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar → back through Manzaratepa is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Manzaratepa → back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → Khishttepa Buddhist temple is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.