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.
The stops in between: Shahristoni Zoli Zar, Manzaratepa, Makbarai Mavlono Tojiddin and back through Manzaratepa. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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 Shahristoni Zoli Zar.
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 comes up about 115 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 146 km into the recorded legs you reach Manzaratepa. 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 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 sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Shahristoni Zoli Zar comes up about 331 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 → Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 115 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shahristoni Zoli Zar → Manzaratepa is 31 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 → back through Manzaratepa is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Manzaratepa → back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar → Tohir Caravansarai is 119 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.