How to Survive a Trip to Erlian

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My first suggestion is make sure not to go to Erlian in the winter and if you can't make sure of that make for damn sure that you don't go when it is snowing. My trip to Erlian took about 72 hours when it should have taken 36. Just a quick note, this blog post is for those trying to cross the border to quickly get out of the country to re-up those annoying 60 or 90 day tourist visas. In theory, this can be an effective and cheap way to go, unless mother nature drops a mild snow storm in your way that Chinese drivers don't know how to negate, although they make the drive frequently. So here is the 25 hour way the trip is supposed to go, by the way this is coming from Beijing.

1. Go to the South Bum Frakk Beijing (I think the area is called Mu Xu Yuan, but have no idea. You know it when you see the blocks of abandoned department stores) and purchase a bus to ticket to Erlian for about 180 yuan. I left around 5pm on Sunday. (I bought my ticket from the Mongolian Embassy and they gave me a ride to the station that is part of the reason why I don't know where I was. From the Mongolian Embassy the ticket cost 230)

2. The bus ride should take about 12 hours and you should get in around 5am. However, if you are an idiot like me. You chose to go to Erlian on the day that it is going to snow mildly, albeit stick to the rode and have to literally wait in track for 10 hours without moving an inch. Until the next morning, when for some reason the trucks that were backing everyone up, decide to pull over to the side of the rode and let everyone pass. Spending an extra 10 hours on the bus not moving doesn't sound bad but it was awful because you are stuck in this tiny bed that is barely wider than my body and definitely not as long as my body. I am 5'9" so if you are taller than me, good luck, you are in for a rough ride. The bed can't be adjusted so you are forced to pretty much lay down the whole time or slouched bent over in your bed because the bus roof is not far away. Also, what made the car ride uncomfortable was you had to fit your feet in these little tiny cubby wholes that squish your feet. The bus was definitely not designed for the American beef cake. A tip of advice, I would take the top bunk, because you don't Chinese people spitting down on you, or dropping food or cigarette buts on you or if you are really unlucky having some kid wet the bed above you. I was on the top by the way. While on the bus I got to observe some interesting interactions with Chinese parents and their kids. I don't know why this happened but for some reason on my way to see a man about a horse, I saw a Chinese mom give a couple of good backhands to her kid, she looked like she was pretty good at ping pong. And at another time, I heard a Chinese mom calling her Child stupid. Both incidents reminded me of the good old days.

3. Once you get in at 5am, you can go to the bus station and wait or you can go to a hotel and stay in a common 3 bed room for 10 to 20 yuan. However, for me I got in at 5pm the next. Meaning I spent a full 24 hours on the bus, double the time. So my schedule was all frakked up, goodbye 25 hour trip hello eternity. Lucky for me, when I got a ride from the Mongolian Embassy to the bus station there were some Mongolians students riding with me. I did not really talk to them in the car ride to the car ride to the bus station or on the bus ride, and by really I mean not at all. But after I got of the bus to Erlian, I must have looked like I was dazed and confused, probably because I was and they jumped to my rescue. Because as you know when, when you get off the bus in any Chinese city, the first thing that happens is you get accosted by Chinese people to try to take you to a hotel or give you a ride or scam you or steal your organs or sell you for sex. As I am somewhat pretty, I was very worried about the latter and was happy to be rescued. The students asked me where I was going in broken English. And I was like Mongolia. (I know what you are asking yourself right now. How did you know they were students if you didn't speak with them. Well, it just so happens that I knew about how to get to Erlian by bus from my Mongolian CIA friend. And he was the one who arranged my trip from the Mongolian Embassy. And as I was riding in the car to the bus station, he texts me and says they look like good Mongolian students, you should hang out with them. Turns out he was right). So once, I tell them I want to go to Mongolia they jam me in this truck car thing. The truck car thing is the size of a smart car and some how we jam, seven people into it, needless to say there was a lot of doubling up and getting to know one another. Another note, since this is close to the border of Mongolia, they are speaking Mongolian the whole time, so I have no clue what is going on and when I jump in the car with them, I have no idea where I am going either. It never occurred for me to ask, when it occurred but I thought it might seem rude, so I just went a long for the ride. After a brief stop at a bank and a really shady place where it looked like for sure I was going to be sold into sexual slavery (thankfully, for what I can only assume was said because it was said in Mongolian, the Mongolians were like "hell nah, we ain't stayin here, you best to take us to another place), finally we ended up at a nice little hotel where it only looked like I might lose a kidney. The Mongolian students ended up being really cool. I went out to dinner with them and they ended up treating me to Mongolian food. At dinner we ended up drinking Mongolian milk tea which was salty, pale, and warm. They told me it was good to warm you up, because it was freezing cold outside. And I ate this fried rice dish with lamb, carrots and cummerbunds that was amazing and we all shared what can be best described as 肉饼. I found out four of the Mongolians were English students and one other was a computer science major and another was just a girlfriend. They had been traveling across China from New Delhi to go home to UB (UB because I don't know how to spell it and I don't want to google it, UB is the capitol). Of the four English students one was female and she dominated the conversation telling me about themselves, her boyfriend is the one whole rescued me and threw me in the car with them. They ended up treating me to dinner. So I decided to return their kindness with a few bottles of 啤酒. We went back to the English students room and watched a couple of performances from the Grammy Awards (Jayz and Black Eyed Peas) and I guess I looked bored or something because they decided to show me Mongolian hip hop music which is a lot like gangsta rap but in Mongolian. I thought I was watching the Mongolian version of N.W.A. and Usher. After while, I went back to my room with the computer science major and the girlfriend and watched How I Met Your Mother with them until I feel a sleep. I didn't bring my computer by the way. I ended up waking up in the middle of the night listening to my ipod until 8am when it was time for me to figure out how to cross the border to Mongolia. Side note, the Stuff You Should Know podcast entertaining and informative, it got me throw my 24 hour bus ride and waking up in the middle of the night.

4. After checking out of the hotel, I rushed over to the bus station to catch a bus to across the border. Cabs to travel short distances around the city are about 5 yuan and they don't turn on the meter, also from the one cabbie I talked to I gathered that all Erlian cabbie's think Obama is bad because he talks to the Dali Lama (that word guaranteed censorship) and sold guns to Taiwan, and that America should have only one party and not two. I could not get him to tell me which party the one should be. Anyway, I rushed to bus station to discover there is only one bus leaving for Zamyn Uud and it is at 1:30pm and the last bus for Beijing is at 4:30pm. So I am beginning to flip my Santa Claus at this moment and freak out. There is no way I am staying another night in Erlian and I really don't want to get stuck in Zamyn Uud. But I buy a ticket anyway for 40 yuan and text my MCIA friend for a solution and he suggest going to the central market to hop a ride with jeeps the cross the border for what he says 150 yuan max. So I hope in the a text and he tells me he has a friend that can take me across for 100 yuan. So I am uber excited at this point because I just might not get stuck in Erlian another night.

5. The what I am going to call the Jeep Marauder tells me that he can take me across for 150 yuan and I am like nah 120 and he was like okay fine and he tells me that he has another American that he is taking too. I am like whatever, but we have to leave now. And he is like okay we will leave now. So I am getting in the car and say hello to the American and the first thing the American tells is that this guy is a trickster and he has been waiting for like an hour to cross. So after 30 minutes of me and the American telling him to lets go already. He finally has gathered enough people to make the trip worthwhile for him and has jammed us tight like sardines in the back seat and the trunk.

6. The border crossing is pretty uneventful, people are jumping out the car left and right some keeping going on to Zamyn Uud with US so don't, new people come in the jeep and each border check point, the driver is jumping out and giving gifts and bribes left and right. All I know is that process of going from the Chinese to the Mongolian check points goes off well with out me being sold in to sexual slavery, as you can tell is something I was really worried about the whole trip.

7. Once across to the Mongolian side, the American and I have to wait in the car for two hours while the driver handles his shady business and gathers more people for the ride back. Luckily, the American was their with me or I probably would have been very annoyed. But having someone to talk about the ridiculousness with makes the time go by a lot faster and makes for pretty interesting observations. I have only been to the US Mexican border once and that was Tijuana, but I never really thought about it until the American pointed it out (he is from Houston, a very large border city. Well, at least I think it is with all that urban sprawl it is just a matter of time if it isn't) to but Erlian and Zamyn Uud look like the US Mexican border and even the US Canadian border to some extent. The US being Erlian in both cases.

8. After gathering enough people, we cross the border again, more bribes and gifts are driver. The driver has to collect half our fare to help pay it. And I notice for half he only collects 50 yuan from me, things are coming up Milhouse.  

9. The driver drops us off at the bus station in Erlian. And I pay him 50 yuan and he doesn't say a word, Ka-Ching!

10. By this time it is 12pm and I hopeful that I can catch the 2pm bus back to Beijing, so I turned in the ticket I previously bought and try to get a ticket back for the 2pm bus, unfortunately it is sold out. But luckily they still have tickets for 4:30 which ends up being sold out by the time I get on. The ticket cost 200 yuan.

11. I ended spending the rest of the time walking around city and eating lunch with the American. At lunch we have this style of egg plant I have never tried. I don't know if I had said this in the blog before, but the egg plant cooked style in China is the best egg plant cooked style in the world, its fact I read in the CIA world fact book. Anyway the style is called 啤酒茄子, it is the best egg plant cooked style I have ever had. The food in Erlian is kind of expensive a dish of 锅爆肉 cost 35 yuan and wasn't nearly as good as my favorite Chinese restaurant's 锅爆肉 (more on that in a future blog), even the Qingdao's (beer) were a whopping 4yuan. The place was breaking the bank on my food budget.

12. The bus back to Beijing was much better. The cubby wholes for the feet where larger, actually built for real size people and beds were longer. If you are really fat and really tall you still would not have enjoyed this bus ride. But as I am just fat and average, it was fine. The only set back on the journey was when the bus driver got lost, but luckily the American was up front with him and had google maps on his phone. I got back to Beijing around 4:30am Wednesday. I felts so happy to see the three big humps of Xizhimen, I almost cried. But I was super sad when I realized the bus driver was driving us back to South Bum Frakk Beijing. I finally made it home around 5am for a nice shower, which I probably shouldn't say but it was my first shower since Sunday morning and the first time I brushed my teeth since then too. It was probably the least hygienic 72 hours of my whole life. If you saw the communal hotel bathroom I was staying in you would not have taken a shower either and probably would have peed outside. The bus station bathroom was much cleaner than the hotels.

Tips: If you try to get on a modern bus and get a top bunk in the back, because they are the best, and if you can't do that get just get a top bunk. Don't get a top bunk in the back on an older bus because then you are basically sharing one bed with everyone in the back. If you are tall you might want to get a top bunk in the very front.

Another tip if you can, travel with someone, preferably Mongolian, it will help a lot. And if you can't do that find some Mongolian students to hang out with. I think navigating the city might be hard if you don't speak Chinese or Mongolian. Very hard.

Another tip, eat the 啤酒茄子and the Mongolian food. But don't get diarrhea, if you do, you are not going to have a good time.

Another tip, know a MCIA agent that you can text for advice or at least someone who has been there.

Last tip, try to get a Jeep Marauder that already has people lined up to go that way you can leave quicker and you don't get scammed. Before I met up with the American he tried to go with these Mongolians guys that just took him to a gas station told him to pay for gas, drove him back to his original destination and then siphoned off the gas.

Shout outs: Thank you MCIA agent for helping me to navigate through this situation, I probably would have been sold in to sexual slavery without your help. And this post is for New Clark, hopefully I can save you a little money when you have to hide from the police again. 

Oh and this is not Golze posting, its me.