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.
451 km from Danghara to Danghara, about 7 h 15 of riding. The stops in between: Shahristoni Zoli Zar, Halevard and back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. Next is Halevard.
Southern Tajikistan is a land of wide river valleys and dry hills, where the Vakhsh and the Panj rivers flow towards the Amu Darya, the Oxus of the ancients, on the border with Afghanistan. Near the town of Kolkhozobod, known today by its newer name, lies Halevard, an archaeological site in the fertile Vakhsh valley. This region was part of ancient Bactria, a land of cities and fortresses that flourished under the Persians, the Greeks who followed Alexander the Great, and the Kushans.
Read the complete Halevard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 225 km into the recorded legs you reach Halevard. 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, late in the day. Next is 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 at Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin. That is the ride.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Shahristoni Zoli Zar → Halevard is 155 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Halevard → back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 153 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar → Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.