Rabati Malik Caravanserai and Varakhsha Settlement

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Rabati Malik Caravanserai is where the day begins. Next is Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.

2. 2. 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 comes up about 53 km into the recorded legs. Next is Varakhsha Settlement.

3. 3. 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

   about 120 km into the recorded legs you reach Varakhsha Settlement. Next is back through Chasma-i Ayub Khazira.

4. 4. 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, late in the day. Next is Rabati Malik Caravanserai.

5. 5. Rabati Malik Caravanserai

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Rabati Malik Caravanserai write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Rabati Malik Caravanserai. That is the ride.