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 358 km round trip from Vose’ - roughly 6 h 49 in the saddle. It goes by way of Khishttepa Buddhist temple, Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin and back through Khishttepa Buddhist temple. 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.
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.
Manzaratepa is where the day begins. Next is Khishttepa Buddhist temple.
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 comes up about 84 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 185 km into the recorded legs you reach Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin. Next is back through 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.
back through Khishttepa Buddhist temple, late in the day. Next is 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.
Back at Manzaratepa. That is the ride.
Manzaratepa → Khishttepa Buddhist temple is 84 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Khishttepa Buddhist temple → Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 101 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → back through Khishttepa Buddhist temple is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Khishttepa Buddhist temple → Manzaratepa is 88 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.