Bohol is an island which is part of the Visayas region of islands of Philippines. Bohol is surrounded by Cebu, Leyte and Mindanao across the Bohol sea.
Image source Wikipedia
The locals call it Republic of Bohol or the Majestic Bohol and even God's Little Paradise, reasons unknown to me. It is a major touristic attraction with its beaches, historical monuments and other attractions. The most popular among these will be the Chocolate Hills and the Philippine Tarsier. Besides these, diving seems to be the main crowd puller to this island. I do not dive, so I cannot vouch for that.
Geting there is easy. If you are in Cebu, take a ride on one of the many ferry services. I took Weesam Express and it costs only about Peso 300 for a one-way trip and Peso 500 for the same trip in an airconditioned cabin. The journey takes less than 2 hours. If you take the fastcraft ferry, it takes about 1 hour. The journey itself is an experience, the water is so blue and refreshing. Even on a very hot day, sitting on the deck of the ferry, the breeze coold you off and you dont sweat a bit. But carry lots of water with you.
Once the ferry docks at Tagbilaran terminal, it is Bohol already. Take a local rental car service which costs about Peso 2000 including fuel and driver to bring you to the various attractions. You can go everywhere within the day.
Our first stop was the Luboc river. You can have buffet lunch on board one of those river boats for 300 peso. A 3 member band entertains you with songs throughout the entire trip. The trip takes you along the backwaters, which is quite an experience. They have done it quite well and the boats coordinate with each other so as not to cause any congestion in the river. The entire ride takes slightly above 1 hour. Along the banks, the boat will stop at a point where the locals will sing and dance to local folksongs and entertain the tourists. You can give them some donation or buy some local products like wild honey or handicraft products. Once the boat hits the waterfall, it turns back and the trip is over.
Next head for Chocolate Hills. The Chocolate Hills is a limestone formation of thousands of small hills covered with lush greenery. The driver told us that the legend behind the hills is that some giants were playing marbles and fell asleep. The marbles were left there and trees grew on them. So funny, wonder what happened to the giants !
You can climb about 500 steps up to the view point where you can take pictures with the hills as background. Or you can engage the services of some professional photographers who can take pictures wonderful pictures of you. For example, they give you a broomstick and ask you to jump a little high. They capture it on camera from a certain angle and the photo comes out perfectly as if you are flying on a broomstick over the hills. But it is certainly a danger waiting to happen. The photoshoot location is filled with gravel, so if you are wearing that slipper or a shoe with worn out soles, you are gonna slip and roll over the hills. I curiously asked the photographer if any one fell down. His reply "none this year Sir"! That says all ! They should have some kind of protective fence or netting there. I also saw the adventurous tourists step over the viewpoint barrier over to the hilly areas to get that perfect shot. Again, do it at own risk.
After Chocolate Hills, on the way back, stop at the Tarsier Sanctuary. If you hold your Luboc river boatride ticket, the entrance is free. Or you can pay a few peso's to watch the tarsiers. There are only about 20 tarsiers in this smaller sanctuary. I was told you can go to a bigger sanctuary, but quite far away from the City. The tarsiers are an endangered species and they are nocturnal animals, so they sleep in the day and get active in the night. They are so small in size, but with very big eyes, that remain open even during sleep. Well, it is cute and really a sight to see.
From the Chocolate Hills, we went to the second oldest church in Philippines, The Baclayon Church. The folktales go that the native laborers took the stone from the sea and stacked it on top of each other to build the church. Apparantly there was no cement, so they took the white of a million eggs to cement the stones together. I went inside the Church, oh so peaceful. There is no eggy smell, it was a beautiful sight, the altar is so simple but with many beautiful statues. Any architecture buff will fall in love with the Church.
After Baclayon Church, we headed to the Blood Compact Monument, which is the location where the local Chieftain Datu Sikatuna and the Spanish Legazpi signed a so-called peace agreement to end hostility. You can take pictures at the memorial posing with the Boholano king and the Spanish entourage.
After this, we are more of less done with the attractions. Actually there are many more attractions, but we were tired. So we decided to head to the Panglao Beach, which has many beach front resorts. I was quite dissapointed when I reached there and was actually thinking of heading back to Cebu that evening. They claim Panglao beach is the best beach in Bohol, but I was totally disspointed, there is no proper road to the beach front resorts. You have to lug your luggage to the resorts. The term resort should not be used, they are more like a backpacker's inn. Since the rate I got was cheap, we decided to stay on for the night. I wonder why they call it a beach, because this beach does not have a shore. Anyway I wandered around the whole stretch of the "beach" trying to find a decent place to eat or have a drink. I soon realized there is no disco, club or even a karoeke place. The only place I could find some music was at one of the resort restaurant blaring loud pop music. There are some snooker bars, that was the only entertainment I could see there. There was not a single bar in sight, and the tourists bought beer or alcohol from the shops and sit by the beach and drink all night, playing games and chit chatting. Major dissapointment, what is a beach holiday without a place to hang out or enjoying a live band or geting to know someone (u know what I mean!).
The next day I woke up and found the pleace deserted, except for some shops trying their luck to sign us up on island hopping trips. Apparantly all the tourists are here for the diving and they leave very early in the morning to the sea. Ah well, I don't dive, we just lazed around for a while, had a nice breakfast, cleared some emails and headed for the ferry. We declined the resort owner's offer to send us to the ferry terminal in her car and instead took the local version of Thailand's tuk-tuk. It is a motorcycle fitted with a small cabin that can fit 2 person with much difficulty. Ahh, 50 minutes later after braving through all the dust and noise, we reached the terminal. Another enjoyable ferry ride and 2 hours later we are in Cebu.
For more information on Bohol, visit the page at Wikipedia. This website of Bohol also gives a lot of useful information on the island. Another useful site is the official website of the local government.
