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 315 km round trip from Moskva - roughly 5 h 38 in the saddle. It goes by way of Zoli Zard, Khishttepa Buddhist temple and back through Zoli Zard. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Zoli Zard.
Danghara lies in the south of Tajikistan, in the province of Khatlon, on the broad, hot plain between the Hissar mountains and the Panj river, which forms the border with Afghanistan. The point called Zoli Zard sits just outside the town, and the name, which means yellow water in Persian, probably refers to a stream or spring in the loess hills. The region is full of such sites, and many of them belong to the long Buddhist, Zoroastrian and later Islamic history of Bactria.
Read the complete Zoli Zard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Zoli Zard comes up about 70 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 155 km into the recorded legs you reach Khishttepa Buddhist temple. Next is back through Zoli Zard.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Zoli Zard write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Zoli Zard, late in the day. Next is 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 at Shahristoni Zoli Zar. That is the ride.
Shahristoni Zoli Zar → Zoli Zard is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Zoli Zard → Khishttepa Buddhist temple is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Khishttepa Buddhist temple → back through Zoli Zard is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Zoli Zard → Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.