Bohol 2015

13 things we did in Bohol
December 13-14, 2015

1. Paragayo Hotel
2. Blood Compact
3. Baclayon Church
4. Tarsier Conservation Area
5. Loboc River Cruise
6. Bilar Man Made Forest
7. Habitat Bohol Eco Park
8. Chocolate Hills
9. Hanging Bridge
10. Bohol Bee Farm
11. Island Hopping
12. Snorkeling
13. Food Trip

Notes

• AirAsia fare from Manila to Tagbilaran for 5 pax without baggage - P4,914.40
• Van for 11 hours includes airport pick up, countryside tour and hotel drop off.  Arranged by Cebu Gen Travel and Tours - P3000
• Tarsier Conservation Area entrance fee - P50
• Loboc River Cruise with Lunch Buffet - P450
• Habitat Bohol Eco Park - P40
• Chocolate Hills entrance fee - P100
• Hanging Bridge entrance fee - P20
• Paragayo Hotel per night for 2 - P1300
• Boat to dolphin watching and Balicasag Island for 5 pax - P1500
• Small boat to Balicasag sanctuary - P250
• Environmental fee - P50
• You may reach Randy at 09292512967 for island hopping boats
• Van transfer from hotel to Oceanjet terminal - P650

Photos

December 13

The start of our five leg trip including 4 destinations in Cebu.  We arrived here in Bohol at 9am and started our countryside tour right away.

First stop, Sandugo or Blood Compact Shrine, a monument symbolizing the seal of friendship between the Spaniards and Filipinos.

Baclayon Church and Museum, the church sustained major damage when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Bohol in 2013 while the museum remained intact and now open to the public.

Tarsier Conservation Area, a popular destination for tourists but this is not the real Tarsier sanctuary.  A Tarsier is a primate, solitary, territorial and nocturnal, measures only from 3-6 inches making them harder to spot in a natural habitat.  If you want a 100% Tarsier sighting, this is the place to go because they are held captive in viewing areas, situated along the trail for people to see.  You can also find souvenir stores here.

If you want to support the conservation and protection of Tarsier sanctuary, go to Philippine Tarsier Foundation in Corella, Bohol, a 167 hectares of forest where Tarsiers live naturally but you really have to explore to spot them.  Since they are only active at night, they are just sleeping during visiting hours.



Loboc River Cruise and Buffet Lunch.  A scenic boat cruise along Loboc River, enjoy the lush environment while having lunch with local favorites food.   Click here on what I had.

Watch local people perform native song and cultural dance.  You can also join and interact with them.

Busay Falls, the final destination of the river cruise before it turns around.  Yeah, most tourist find this small falls silly.  Totally unexpected!

Mahogany Man-made Forest.  A stretch of Mahogany trees in Bilar that is also a major attraction in Bohol because of trees unvarying to each other.  All of them are growing straight up towards the sky.  A dazzling sight which makes you stop and take pictures instead of just passing through.  I noticed that some groups are stopping over here to have lunch or picnic and guess what, garbage all over the place.

Simply Butterflies Conservation Center.  Located also in Bilar, this was one of the most entertaining tours we had.  Hire a guide when you explore this place.  Bored by butterflies?  Well, not here.  Our guide made this tour enjoyable, aside from informing about butterflies, he is spontaneously cracking up jokes to make it interesting.  The best part of the tour was the photo opps with butterfly props.

Chocolate Hills.  The number one attraction in Bohol.  This Chocolate Hills Complex located in Carmen also suffered damages during the 2013 earthquake.  Although they allow tourists to reach the top, the view deck has yet to be rebuilt.  Nevertheless, it still offer a spectacular view of the hills.  The hills are coned shape limestone covered in grass, ranging from 30 to 50 meters in height.  The grass is green in wet season and turns brown in the dry season earning to their name.

  
Bamboo Hanging Bridge.  Located in Sevilla, the twin bamboo woven bridge crosses the river Sipatan.  Crossing a hanging bridge is scary to some people like my auntie because it bends and sways to every footstep specially when there's a lot of people on it.  To us it was a fun activity as we don't normally experience such a bridge and pushing auntie to overcome her fear adds to the fun.

Bohol Bee Farm.  Located in Dao, our last destination for the day before heading to the hotel.  Intended to be here at the end of the day because this is a perfect place to have our dinner.  But before that, we had a tour of the place.  We were so late that the almost all of the guides were off already, but thanks to one guide who was kind enough to show us around and did it for free.  The tour was about their organic food, merchandise and bees.

Dinner time, what we are all been waiting for.  Check out our food here.

Paragayo Resort.  Our accomodation for tonight.  A decent 3 star hotel about 50 meters away from Alona Beach.  The room is clean and tidy.  Amenities are TV, mini ref, air-conditioning, electric fan, closet, rack, toilet and bath, soap and shampoo.  No breakfast included.

And we are not yet done for the night, certainly not yet done for another round of Bohol Bee Farm's organic ice cream.  They have a restaurant branch at Alona beach so we tried another flavor.  Gotta have something to indulge while we stroll the beach.  Check out what we had here.

First day concluded, more fun tomorrow.




December 14

Balicasag Island.  Woke up at 6am for our dolphin watching and island hopping.  Got to do this early because we need to check out at 12nn for Cebu.  Randy, our boat guide, picked us up at Henann Resort beachfront.  Before reaching Balicasag island will be the dolphin watching, initially, I don't want to include this to our island hopping because I thought the chances of seeing the dolphins is slim and might waste our time looking for it.  But from afar, we can already see a group of boats circling in the middle of the sea.  There was a sighting of the dolphins.  Our boat joined the group and we chased the dolphins.

  @3:48 Our dolphin sighting experience.

After about 30 minutes of watching the dolphins we head straight to Balicasag Island.  Because of the low tide, we were not able to get on the island.  We anchored just off the shore for snorkeling.  To reach the sanctuary, we have to rent a smaller boat and paddle the way in.  

Done with the sanctuary, Randy took us to another location for a sea turtle sighting.  But for us to enjoy it, we have to get off the boat and swim to hunt for them.  Having our life jackets and snorkels on, we scanned the sea floor for a good 30 minutes and spotted sea turtles 3 times.  It was very exhausting but worthwhile.

@4:24 Our sea turtle sighting experience.

It's 10am and we have to go back now to the hotel.  Virgin Island is included in the package but due to a limited time we have to skip it.  I thought we can make the whole trip in 4 hours but we can't help ourselves staying longer at the sanctuary and the turtle hunt.  The time passed so quickly as we appreciate nature so much.

After packing up our things we head out for lunch.  Guess where?  At Bohol Bee Farm again.  We can do this all the time, you can't go wrong with their food.  Click here for our lunch at their Alona beach branch.

After some luscious lunch, we went back to the hotel.  We are scheduled to be picked up at 2pm for our Oceanjet ride to Cebu.  Queen of the South, here we come!


Check out our Cebu City trip here.