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 Karmana Shahri it runs 211 km to Karmana Shahri; allow about 3 h 43 of riding. The stops in between: Rabati Malik Caravanserai, Chasma-i Ayub Khazira, Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex and back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira. The line favours views over speed.
Navoi is a strange and rather brilliant city. It does not appear on any old caravan map, because it was founded in 1958 in the middle of the Kyzylkum desert, to house the workers of the gold and uranium industries and to give the Soviet planners a clean slate. It was named after Alisher Navoi, the fifteenth-century poet who wrote in Chagatai Turkic and who has become the national literary hero. Wide avenues, tidy parks and rows of apartment blocks give it the air of a model town, and in the heat of the afternoon it is remarkably quiet.
Read the complete Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum is where the day begins. Next is Rabati Malik Caravanserai.
Only the portal of Rabati Malik is left standing, but what a portal it is: a tall brick façade with a great arch, framed by fluted columns and decorated with intricate brick patterns, rising beside the road between Bukhara and Samarkand in the steppe of central Uzbekistan. It was built in the eleventh century by the Karakhanid rulers as a royal caravanserai, a fortified palace and rest stop on the Silk Road, and travellers once found shelter, water and protection here behind its massive walls. The rest of the building was destroyed over the centuries, but archaeologists have traced its plan, and the portal itself has been restored. Across the road, a sardoba, a domed brick reservoir, collected water for the caravans and is still in good condition.
Read the complete Rabati Malik Caravanserai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rabati Malik Caravanserai comes up 39 km in. 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.
77 km in you reach Chasma-i Ayub Khazira. Next is Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex.
Bahauddin Naqshband died in 1389 in the village where he was born, a short ride from Bukhara, and the Sufi order that bears his name went on to spread across Central Asia, India, the Ottoman Empire and beyond. The Naqshbandi order emphasised silent remembrance of God and living a spiritual life within the everyday world, and its founder's tomb became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Central Asia, so much so that locals sometimes call it the Mecca of Central Asia. The complex, with its mosques, minaret, courtyards and the tomb itself, was largely built in the sixteenth century under the Shaybanid rulers and restored in recent decades.
Read the complete Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex, about halfway. 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.
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira sits at 154 km, about halfway. Next is back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rabati Malik Caravanserai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai comes up 193 km in. Next is Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum closes the day.
Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum → Rabati Malik Caravanserai is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rabati Malik Caravanserai → Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahouddin Naqshband Architectural Complex → back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rabati Malik Caravanserai → Mir Sayid Bakhrom Mausoleum is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.