The Traveling Rumptzes: Bohol Trip

Bohol Trip

First the bad news, Tita has gotten the news that she is supposed to return to the UAE for work on 19 August 2010!!! The good news is she has a job that pays almost as much as mine and that is great news as I will most likely follow in her footsteps next year when my job at the University expires.

Day 1
This change in departure dates prompted us to hope on the next boat to Bohol as we wanted to see it before we left. We hopped the fast boat (truly a fast boat not like the one over to Camotes) and landed in Tagbilaran the capitol city of Bohol at 2:30 pm on Friday. We decided to take a trike for the journey over to Panglao Island. Panglao is promoted as having the best white sand beaches in the area and is also well known for its wonderful diving spots. A trike is just a 125 motorcycle with a huge side car on it so it really does not travel that fast and it belches a lot of exhaust. Anyway we made it over to the Alona beach, which is supposed to be one of the best beaches and started looking for a hotel as we had not made reservations. 30 minutes later we found a nice place that was close to the beach at a reasonable rate.

After settling in we headed down to the beach for a late lunch / early dinner. The beach itself was pretty overrun with resorts and restaurants creeping up to the beach front. We ordered dinner and waited, and waited and waited. It turns out that on Bohol they make your food as you order it. This is supposed to mean that each dish you order is freshly prepared, not like in the west where food is prepared and sits waiting for you. I personally could not tell the difference, but it did give me time to drink a few before the food arrived and it did give the kids a chance to play on the beach.

Day 2 Island Tour
We got a great tour guide to take us to all the sites on the islands and he even took us to some of the places that are not on the one day tour.

Blood Compact

This spot was a required stop on the tour but I would have given it a miss if I had a choice. It is the site of a monument to the friendship between the local chief and the 5th Spanish expedition to the Philippines on May 10, 1565. One thing I found interesting was how most of the Filipinos were hostile to the Spanish explorers of that time. Read more if you like at http://www.bohol-philippines.com/blood-compact-site.html

Baclayon Church and Museum

“The Baclayon Church is the second oldest stone church in the Philippines. Constructed in 1595 by the Jesuit priests, it is still intact and houses important relics and images reminiscent of the historic Roman Catholic religion in the country. Among those displayed in the church museum are: crystal chandelier, silver tabernacle, altar with carvings inlaid with gold, life-size statues and more.“ http://www.hawaii.edu/cps/baclayon.html

I really did not enjoy the museum that much as you could not take photos and the first part of the museum was filled with old stuff like typewriters, cameras, etc. that were not a part of church tradition. As far as the rest it was nice to see the old religious items but I am not a big museum goer and nether is the rest of the family. The church was nice and I even made the kids pray.

Prony Python Park

Now this part of our tour was on the off beaten path and was one of the cool things that we did. I liked it for several reasons first there were not tons of other tourists there. Second they let you go in the cage and hang out with the animals. I am sure PETA would say something about it but I had a blast and most of the animals seemed fine with us visiting. I have to say it was hard to imagine that 550 pound snake (250 KG) moving around but I am sure when it is hungry it strikes. The owners said that in the wild it would take 40 years for the snake to get this large but as they feed it a lot it got bigger fast.

As you can see they had a monkey that enjoyed playing with us as well.

Philippine Tarsier

“The Philippine Tarsier is a tiny animal; it measures only about 85 to 160 millimetres (3.35 to 6.30 in) in height, making it one of the smallest primates.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Tarsier

These things are cute beyond words and they are plentiful in Bohol. On the third day Andrew got to feed one of them.

Manmade Forest

I guess this was a reforestation project of the local mayor or something about 20-30 years ago. He got the students in the area to replant the barren hills with mahogany trees. My question is will they harvest this wood?

Loboc River Cruise

We were all but forced to do this part of the cruise and in theory you take the large floating dining area boat up to the waterfalls. In reality the waterfalls are about 3 feet high. We did the “supreme” dining boat, the food was not that good but you had a lot of space so were not crowed like the other boats and the music was actually good.

Chocolate Hills

"The Chocolate Hills are cone-shaped hills made of grass-covered limestone. During the dry season the grass-covered hills dry up and turn chocolate brown. This transforms the area into seemingly endless rows of "chocolate kisses". The Chocolate Hills are made by a combination of the dissolution of limestones by rainfall, surface water, and groundwater and their erosion by rivers and streams after they had been uplifted above sea level and fractured by tectonic processes.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_Hills#Description

The walk up to the observation deck was 214 steeps I thought I was going to lose Tita on the journey up!! The driver we had tried to get us out of paying for our visit to the observation deck as he thought it was a rip off. He drove up and we got out of the car and then he drove away before they could charge us entrance- for some reason they followed him instead of us. We almost got away with his plan but Andrew and I had gone to the bathroom so when he came back he had to wait and we got busted!!! No big deal.

We also found this huge roach err I mean beetle hanging on a trash can. After a few snaps some Chinese kids started playing with him aggressively. After they took off for a bit I picked him up and set him free, that was freaky having this huge beetle crawling on me.

Simply Butterflies

I have to say that educationally this was the best place I have been. They have a real well trained staff that is knowledgeable about butterflies and moths. They have an active breeding program and release some of the butterflies into the wild. They even sell live butterflies for release at weddings. All in all it was a wonderful educational experience.

We found out that most butterflies feed in the morning so they were pretty inactive when we went to see them in the afternoon. But the best butterfly enclosure we went was in Palawan Philippines in 2006 as the number of butterflies in the enclosure was the highest and we happened to visit in the morning so the butterflies were quite active.

Hanging Bridge

This was nice walk above the river. The bridge’s main suspension cables were steel nut the walkway was made out of bamboo. It was kind of creaky at several spots. And then we had a bus load of Korean Students show up. We got across the river before they got on and waited until most had gone back before we went back but we were on the bridge with a few of them and they were kind enough to take a picture of the whole family!

Hilltop Cottages

The walk up from the entrance to the cottages is 105 steps and let me tell you we made the journey a few too many times in the night that we stayed there. Why? Well the pool is at the bottom of the resort. And the kids love to swim so we made the journey several times.

Day 3
Bohol Horse Ridding

I had to take the whole family out for a horse ride.

The horses were very tame and the kids and Tita had a guide for their horses. As I had ridden before I was a lone just man and his trusty stead. OK jokes aside the horse knew what it was doing and needed only a few reminders of the path.

Bohol Loboc Eco-Adventure

“The zip line which is the second to Loboc Eco-Adventure Tour crosses a 520-meter distance, giving tourists a perfect bird's eye view of the river and its river banks. The Busay falls at the upper end of the famous Loboc River Cruise is captured with a full overview when one takes the zipline or the cable car. The cable car traverses a distance of 420 meters. Both activities assure tourists of the best scenery at a height of between 100 to 120 meters over the river.”