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.
401 km from Farkhor to Farkhor, about 7 h 03 of riding. On the way it passes Kalai Hulbuk, Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin, Khishttepa Buddhist temple and back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Shahrtepa lies in the lowlands of southern Tajikistan, in Khatlon province, within sight of the Panj river and the Afghan hills beyond. The word tepa means a mound, and it is the right word: a mound that has built up over centuries as one settlement was layered over another, in the Bactrian country that Alexander crossed and that later fed the Kushan empire. A Buddhist temple site is linked with this area, a reminder that this was once a place where monks, merchants and caravans met on the way between India, Central Asia and China.
Read the complete Shahrtepa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shahrtepa is where the day begins. Next is Kalai Hulbuk.
Hulbuk was the capital of a small principality of the Samanid era in what is now southern Tajikistan, and it is one of the most evocative ruins in the Khatlon region. Its location is on the plains south of Vose, near the Kyzylsu, within sight of the Afghan border country. Archaeologists dug out a palace complex of mud-brick and fired brick from the ninth to eleventh centuries, with remarkable carved terracotta panels and a ceramic tradition that left glazed bowls with sharp, graceful script. Some of this is displayed in a small museum on site, and part of the citadel has been reconstructed so you can see how the high rooms were arranged.
Read the complete Kalai Hulbuk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kalai Hulbuk comes up about 38 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 113 km into the recorded legs you reach Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin sits at 233 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kalai Hulbuk.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kalai Hulbuk write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kalai Hulbuk comes up about 361 km into the recorded legs. Next is Shahrtepa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Shahrtepa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Shahrtepa closes the day.
Shahrtepa → Kalai Hulbuk is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kalai Hulbuk → Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → 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 Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 89 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → back through Kalai Hulbuk is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kalai Hulbuk → Shahrtepa is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.