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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
612 km from Farkhor to Farkhor, about 10 h 32 of riding. The stops in between: Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal, Kalai Hulbuk, Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin and back through Kalai Hulbuk. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal.
Khuttal was a medieval kingdom in the south of what is now Tajikistan, centred on the fertile valleys between the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, and it flourished as a crossroads of trade and culture between Central Asia, Iran and India. The region's heritage includes the ruins of palaces, towns and religious buildings, such as the citadel of Hulbuk, near Vose', a royal residence from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, with richly decorated walls, and the town of Kulob, with the mausoleum of the fourteenth-century Sufi scholar Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani. Several of these sites have been nominated together for UNESCO recognition.
Read the complete Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach Kalai Hulbuk. 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.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin, 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 sits at 407 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal comes up about 534 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 → Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal → Kalai Hulbuk is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kalai Hulbuk → Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 149 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin → back through Kalai Hulbuk is 149 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kalai Hulbuk → back through Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal → Shahrtepa is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.