Bohol

This week finally took us to the island of Bohol for about 4 days.  Wow!  This is a place I've been wanting to visit.  Now I can't figure out what took us so long!

About 350 miles south of Manila, but an easy inexpensive one hour plane ride away, Bohol is set in the Visayas in the middle of the country.  Its not far from Dumaguete and Cebu, other places we've visited in the last year.

Bohol makes an excellent alternative to Boracay.  The beaches are just as great, but without the crowds.  If you're looking for a relaxing time on the beach, some diving or snorkeling or dolphin watching, this is a better place to go in my view.  If you're looking for bars, night clubs, more people, then Boracay is probably preferable.

Most of the resorts are on Panglao, a small island connected to the main island by a couple of causeway bridges.  We stayed at the Bohol Beach Club, one of the original resorts, but it's recently been renovated.  Everything about it was fantastic.  It's right on a white sand beach with crystal clear water, and everyone there was very friendly and helpful.

     

One of the popular things to do in Bohol is dolphin watching.  We hired a bangka (small boat) to pick us up early one morning.  Thanks to Tony's superior bargaining skills, instead of paying the P5,500 ($122) advertised rate, or the P3,500 ($78) hotel rate, we paid P1,500 ($34) for a three hour ride a couple miles out to an area where dolphins feed.  Since they mainly feed in the morning, we had to leave at 6 am, but it was well worth it.  We saw dozens of dolphins out there.

The island was hard hit by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake just a year ago, with lots of damage and many deaths.  Most of the damage was in the north (we were in the south), but we still saw a number of old churches with major damage.  Many of the churches there date back to the 16th and 17th centuries and are really vulnerable to earthquakes.

Bohol is probably best known for it's "chocolate hills", a group of more than a thousand large round and cone shaped mounds.  Grass covered, the hills are brown during dry season which earned them the "chocolate hills" name, but they're quite impressive year round.   It's generally thought that upwelling of coral deposits is the cause of the mounds, but I don't know why they're not visible elsewhere.  They were far more impressive than I'd expected.

Another unique feature of Bohol is that it's home to an endangered species called the Tarsier.  Its one of the world's smallest primates with bulging eyes and a head that can turn 180 degrees.  The province is leading the way to protect the species which can be seen in several preserves around the island.  We stopped at one near the chocolate hills and were able to see several Tarsiers.

Bohol earned a bigs thumbs up from both of us!

   

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