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.
441 km from Danghara to Danghara, about 8 h 44 of riding. On the way it passes Manzaratepa, Shahristoni Zoli Zar, Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal and back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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 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 74 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 102 km into the recorded legs you reach Shahristoni Zoli Zar. 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, 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 sits at 147 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 367 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Zoli Zard closes the day.
Zoli Zard → Manzaratepa is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Manzaratepa → Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Shahristoni Zoli Zar → Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal is 119 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cultural Heritage Sites of Ancient Khuttal → back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar is 115 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Shahristoni Zoli Zar → back through Manzaratepa is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Manzaratepa → Zoli Zard is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.