In most of the country, the language used is Mongolian. A few weeks ago, I visited a province called Bayan-Olgii on the western edge of the country, bordering the country of Kazakhstan. In that province of Mongolia, the people speak Kazakh!
The currency throughout the country is the tugrik. It is very inflated, which means that you need a large amount of tugriks to buy anything. For example, in the United States, we have one dollar, five dollar and ten dollar bills. In Mongolia, we have 1000 tugrik, 5000 tugrik, 10,000 tugrik and 20,000 tugrik bills.
From the little stands on the street, a bottle of water can cost as little as fifty cents. But if you go to a nice restaurant, it could cost two dollars! There is a big difference in price depending on where you buy things.
The best meal was at a vegan restaurant called Luna Blanca. Here I got to try vegan versions of Mongolian national foods! I had rainbow soup with seaweed, vegan hoshuur, vegan budz, and a chocolate banana smoothie. Yummy!
