Why this ride
A 355 km round trip from Karakul’ - roughly 6 h 52 in the saddle. The stops in between: Varakhsha Settlement, Historic Centre of Bukhara, Chasma-i Ayub Khazira and Vardanze Settlement. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Paikend Settlement and Vardanze Settlement
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 355 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 6 h 52
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Uzbekistan Silk Road Route
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 34 km this is Uzbekistan Silk Road Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 34 km
- Named road
- Uzbekistan Silk Road Route
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Paikend Settlement
The ancient city of Paikend lies in the desert on the edge of the Bukhara oasis, in Uzbekistan, and it is so old that the Silk Road was only one chapter of its story. Early writers called it the city of merchants. It stood on a major route between the Zarafshan river and the Amu Darya, near the sands of the Kyzylkum, and it was a fortified trading town from the early centuries BC, with a citadel, a main town and a market district, at its peak in the early Islamic period. It declined after the eleventh century, as the river shifted and Bukhara took the trade.
Read the complete Paikend Settlement write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Paikend Settlement is where the day begins. Next is Varakhsha Settlement.
2. Varakhsha Settlement
Thirty kilometres or so west of Bukhara, beyond the last irrigated fields, the land turns to sand and salt crust at the edge of the Kyzylkum desert, and here a low mound of eroded mud brick rises from the flat ground. This is Varakhsha, once a flourishing town and the residence of the Bukhar Khudats, the pre-Islamic rulers of the Bukhara oasis. It thrived in the early medieval centuries, when the oasis extended further than it does today, and was abandoned around the eleventh century, probably as irrigation failed and the desert advanced.
Read the complete Varakhsha Settlement write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Varakhsha Settlement comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Historic Centre of Bukhara.
3. Historic Centre of Bukhara
Bukhara is a city that feels like a lived-in museum. For more than two thousand years it has been a trading town on the routes across Central Asia, and in the ninth and tenth centuries, under the Samanid dynasty, it was one of the great centres of Islamic learning, home to scholars such as Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna. Genghis Khan sacked it in 1220, but the Kalyan Minaret, built in 1127, survived, and legend says even the conqueror was impressed. Today the old city is a remarkable ensemble of mosques, madrasas, caravanserais and domed bazaars, and it entered the World Heritage list in 1993.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Bukhara write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 98 km into the recorded legs you reach Historic Centre of Bukhara. Next is Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.
4. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira, about halfway. Next is Vardanze Settlement.
5. Vardanze Settlement
North of Bukhara the irrigated land eventually runs into the sand, and on that edge lies Vardanze, the ruins of an ancient city that was once the capital of a local principality in the Bukhara oasis. Its mound of collapsed mud-brick walls and citadel rises above the fields near Shofirkon, and archaeologists have traced its history back more than two thousand years. It flourished as a trading post on the Silk Road and later declined, partly because the desert advanced and the water supply failed, and its ruins are part of the Zarafshan-Karakum corridor listed by UNESCO in 2023.
Read the complete Vardanze Settlement write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Vardanze Settlement sits at 160 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.
6. back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chasma-i Ayub Khazira write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira comes up about 210 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Historic Centre of Bukhara.
7. back through Historic Centre of Bukhara
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Centre of Bukhara write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 246 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Historic Centre of Bukhara. Next is back through Varakhsha Settlement.
8. back through Varakhsha Settlement
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Varakhsha Settlement write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Varakhsha Settlement, late in the day. Next is Paikend Settlement.
9. Paikend Settlement
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Paikend Settlement write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The route ends here after 355 km.
Leg by leg
Paikend Settlement to Varakhsha Settlement
Paikend Settlement → Varakhsha Settlement is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Varakhsha Settlement to Historic Centre of Bukhara
Varakhsha Settlement → Historic Centre of Bukhara is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Historic Centre of Bukhara to Chasma-i Ayub Khazira
Historic Centre of Bukhara → Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira to Vardanze Settlement
Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → Vardanze Settlement is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vardanze Settlement to back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira
Vardanze Settlement → back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira to back through Historic Centre of Bukhara
back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira → back through Historic Centre of Bukhara is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Historic Centre of Bukhara to back through Varakhsha Settlement
back through Historic Centre of Bukhara → back through Varakhsha Settlement is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Varakhsha Settlement to Paikend Settlement
back through Varakhsha Settlement → Paikend Settlement is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.