Silk Route
The 2012 Route
Sections
The Golden Road
Dushanbe to Ashgabat
Start: August 1, Dushanbe, Tajikistan
Finish: August 15, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Price: €1,750
Finish: August 15, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan
Price: €1,750
Distance: 1,347km
Riding Days: 11 days
Resting Days: 4 days
Riding Days: 11 days
Resting Days: 4 days
(difficulty) |
(exotic factor) |
(comfort) |
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned.
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarqand.”
(From James Elroy Flecker’s The Golden Journey to Samarqand)
Leaving Dushanbe we pedal alongside the Turkistan Range and the Zeravshan river, over passes, and through a vertical world of towering peaks to Penjikent and then onto our next country, Uzbekistan.
From the Uzbekistan border it’s a day's ride through the Uzbek countryside to legendary Samarqand, where our eyes will feast on the minarets and domes of Uzbekistan's most glorious city. As James Elroy Flecker wrote in The Golden Journey to Samarqand. From one magical place we cycle towards another; Central Asia's holiest city of Bukkhara. Here you will explore buildings with histories spanning thousands of years and sights seemingly drawn from the medieval tales of flying carpets and 1001 Nights.
Departing Bukkhara, we ride south towards the ancient city of Merv, once one of the most important centres of the Islamic world and today a World Heritage site. In the nearby modern city of Mary, we will recuperate from the heat of the Turkmen desert and visit the restored mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, ruler of the Seljuk Empire. Turning west we continue though this unusual and spiritual land, inhabited by people of proud traditions, magnificent Ahal Tekke horses and vast natural beauty. Before long, we will reach Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan and a spectacle that must be seen to believed.
Countries: Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan
