CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Bayramaly it runs 266 km to Bayramaly; allow about 6 h 37 of riding. On the way it passes Yaz and Gobekli Tepes, Besh Agyz koshk, Togoluk and back through Besh Agyz koshk. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Merv was one of the great cities of the world, and today it is a field of mud-brick walls in the Karakum desert. At its height in the twelfth century, under the Seljuk sultan Sanjar, Merv was among the biggest cities on Earth, a Silk Road oasis with libraries, mosques, markets and an elaborate water system fed by canals from the Murghab river. The Mongols destroyed it in 1221, and although a later city grew nearby, the old centre never recovered. The ancient cities of Merv, which spread across a series of walled sites from the time of the Persians to the fifteenth century, were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1999.
Read the complete Koshk Imaret near Abdullah Khan Kala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koshk Imaret near Abdullah Khan Kala is where the day begins. Next is Yaz and Gobekli Tepes.
Out on the edge of the Murghab oasis in south-eastern Turkmenistan, where irrigated cotton fields meet the sand of the Karakum, low mounds rise from the flat land. Tepe means hill, and these hills are the eroded remains of ancient settlements: Yaz Depe, which gave its name to an Iron Age culture of the early first millennium BC, and Gobekli Depe nearby. To an untrained eye they are just humps of clay, but they belong to one of the longest continuous stories of settlement in Central Asia.
Read the complete Yaz and Gobekli Tepes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Yaz and Gobekli Tepes comes up 29 km in. Next is Besh Agyz koshk.
Out on the edge of the Merv oasis in southeastern Turkmenistan, where irrigated fields fade into the sand of the Karakum desert, stand the ruins of buildings known as koshks. These were fortified mansions of mud brick, with heavily ribbed walls that look like giant corrugated cardboard, built in the early medieval period by the landed gentry of Merv. Besh Agyz, which means five mouths, is one of them, and it is part of the UNESCO listing of the Silk Roads, alongside the vast ruined cities of Ancient Merv, a World Heritage Site since 1999. Merv was for centuries one of the great cities of the Islamic world and a key stop on the routes between China and the Mediterranean, until the Mongols destroyed it in the thirteenth century.
Read the complete Besh Agyz koshk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
57 km in you reach Besh Agyz koshk. Next is Togoluk.
What I can say is that the surrounding land belongs to the Murghab oasis, where a river born in the Afghan mountains fans out into irrigated fields, then dies in the sand. This is one of the oldest farming and trading landscapes in Central Asia, and everything around here is shaped by water and by the lack of it.
Read the complete Togoluk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Togoluk, about halfway. Next is back through Besh Agyz koshk.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Besh Agyz koshk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Besh Agyz koshk sits at 114 km, about halfway. Next is back through Yaz and Gobekli Tepes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Yaz and Gobekli Tepes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Yaz and Gobekli Tepes comes up 143 km in. Next is Koshk Imaret near Abdullah Khan Kala.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Koshk Imaret near Abdullah Khan Kala write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Koshk Imaret near Abdullah Khan Kala closes the day.
Koshk Imaret near Abdullah Khan Kala → Yaz and Gobekli Tepes is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Yaz and Gobekli Tepes → Besh Agyz koshk is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Besh Agyz koshk → Togoluk is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Togoluk → back through Besh Agyz koshk is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Besh Agyz koshk → back through Yaz and Gobekli Tepes is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Yaz and Gobekli Tepes → Koshk Imaret near Abdullah Khan Kala is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.