We took a bus from Datong to Erlian which is a small border town in Inner Monglia right next to the Mongolia border to spend the night before crossing into Mongolia.

At the bank, while trying to convert some currency, we were told by the bank employee that they don’t have Mongolian money and we should go to the black market near by to change money. It was a bit funny to be told by a major bank to go to the black market. Alas, we decided to wait until we crossed the border…

For dinner we decided on an all you can eat restaurant that specialized in stewed pork bones. That’s right you heard it, stewed pork bones. The waitress explained that it’s a north eastern specialty. Basically it’s stewed large pieces of hacked up pork bones with some meat still attached to it. The meat on the bone is especially flavorful and very tender. There isn’t
that much meat on each bone but you are given piles and piles of it. You also can suck out the marrow with a straw. The meal also came with unlimited side dishes, fresh dumplings and blood sausage pickled cabbage soup. All this plus 8 beers came to about $7 each. There was a funny moment when I explained to our very nice Chinese waitress that we were heading to Mongolia and she replied- “Mongolia, no it’s not nice there, not nice at all, it’s much better here!”