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.
It goes by way of Manzaratepa, 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. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
A caravanserai is the original motorway service station, and the one at Tohir shows how much trouble medieval travellers took to rest. These fortified inns stood at intervals along the trade routes of Asia, a day's journey apart, with a gate big enough for a laden camel, an open court for the animals and rooms for merchants and their goods, so that a caravan could stop safely at the end of a day. Tohir lies in the south of Tajikistan, in the hot valley of the Panj river, which forms the border with Afghanistan, and the tracks that passed it probably linked the Oxus crossings and the old cities of Bactria to the mountain valleys of the north. The place has the hushed look of a ruin in a farm landscape, with clay brick walls and arched openings catching the afternoon sun.
Read the complete Tohir Caravansarai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tohir Caravansarai is where the day begins. Next is Manzaratepa.
Tepa means mound, and in southern Tajikistan the plains are dotted with them: hills built up over centuries from the remains of mud-brick towns, each layer burying the one before. Manzaratepa, near the town of Vose' in the Khatlon region, is one of these ancient settlement mounds, part of a network of sites in the fertile valleys between the Panj and Vakhsh rivers that were inhabited from the Bronze Age through the Kushan and early Islamic periods. Archaeological work has revealed traces of fortifications, houses and ceramics, and the sites are part of Tajikistan's long, rich and little-known history along the Silk Roads.
Read the complete Manzaratepa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Manzaratepa comes up about 118 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 202 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 221 km, about halfway. Next is back through Manzaratepa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Manzaratepa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Manzaratepa comes up about 459 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tohir Caravansarai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tohir Caravansarai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tohir Caravansarai closes the day.
Tohir Caravansarai → Manzaratepa is 118 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Manzaratepa → Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin is 84 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 Manzaratepa is 83 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Manzaratepa → Tohir Caravansarai is 120 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.