Advertisement
Published: December 19th 2008
A little sad to leave this beautiful island behind, we climbed aboard the banca that would take us back to Cebu island at around 9-ish. On the other side tha bus that would take us back to Cebu city in four hours was already waiting. The trip didn't feel that long luckily, and a quick taxi ride to the port told us the fast ferry to Taglibaran was leaving at 5 o'clock. That gave us enough time to find an airline ticket office nearby to buy a ticket back to Manila. Again it was a bargain to fly, for the two of us we paid just 3850 Pesos to fly from Taglibaran Bohol airport to Manila!
The ferry ride was very comfortable, although slightly cold due to an airconditioning gone wild.
For anyone doing this trip, very likely one of the attendants will come up to you offering a daytrip from Panglao island to see the sights of Bohol + transport from the ferry terminal to Alona beach on Panglao for 3000 pesos. We decided against, and fortunately this turned out to be a money saver. Anyway, it got me an opportunity to go outside for a minute on the back
of the boat, normally closed off, after asking the same attendant. Thinking this could help her sell anything to me, she agreed.
A 30 minute tricycle ride took us to Alona beach, where in the dark it seemed there wasn't a whole lot of choice of accomodation for us to choose from. Fortunately we were met by a friendly lady, leading us up a few steps to her place called Alona Grove. Here, although away from the beach, a selection of huts were available for the budget-conscious traveler.
Ours had a pretty little pattio and even a TV, but we weren't going to need that.
Now, about the food; We hadsome fantastic food here, I mean living in China, I need some intake of western food sometimes, and the Ozzie meatpie, Italian Calzoni, Mexican totillas.... all were as tasty as the English breakfasts in the morning.
Man, did I need that!
With 4 days left before we had to head back to Manila, we made a little plan of things we wanted to do. That first day we rented a motorbike to look around the island. At first we wanted to take the road that circles Panglao, but
with an empty tank we thought it smarter to drive to Tabglibaran first. (It's cheaper there too!) The church here was of interest to Zhu, so we had a look inside. Beautiful glass stained windows picturing various biblical scenes shed colourful light upon the old ladies that sat qutly doing their prayers. All very serene. I preferred the loud roar of a 125 cc, so back on the road this time taking the other bridge going accross to Panglao, we took another road stopping at a few beaches along the way.
When we saw a sign indicating a zoo, we had to check it out of course. This particular 'zoo' was being kept by a couple of heavily overweight queens, displaying stuffed monkeys with erect penisses amongst the 'living' animals.
Sadly though, one cage was being occupied by a monkey, cat and dog all together, while other enclosures were defenitely too small for the animals. But for 20 pesos entrance fee, what can you expect?
The main 'sight' on te island apart from the beach is the ............. cave, which the locals apparently understand looking at the amount of souveniers for sale outside the entance to the cave, of
course all selling exactly the same.
The cave is nice, chrystal clear blue water, brackish and cool surrounded by some stalagtites and light coming in from a few holes in the ceiling. I actually went for swim, and although a little scary with bats flying over your head, it was very refreshing.
We ended at the southern most point of Panglao, a perfect spot to watch the sunset with a little shack put up by the locals.
Unfortunately it started raining quite heavily so we returned our motorbikes (with a full tank) and recided to our bungalow.
The next morning we left at 8 a.m. by car, with our host as driver. First stop on our 'Bohol tour' was The Chocolate hills, about one and a half hours drive from Alona. Although it was the end of the rainy season so I had expected the hills to be more green, they still contained quite a bitof brown vegetation that has given the hills their name. Very touristy as expected, we followed the other sightseeers up the stairs to the look out. Really impressive sight, as we were told a total of nearing 1000 rounded hills dotting the landscape. Up
at the top you have the opportunity to have your photo taken, and from their examples we tried out a few of their photo tricks. Turned out allright didn't it?
Next stop was the 'man-made forest', a couple of decades ago they planted a whole lot of hardwood trees which by now have grown into a dark cool tall-treed forest with a brandnew road running through the middle. From here it was on to the Tarsiers.
And they are sooo cute! I didn't like the fact how the keepers wre 'plucking' them out of trees and putting them on peoples shoulders and heads though. When I was there I read the local Bohol Chronicle in which an article was saying how some of the places that display tarsiers to tourists weren't taking care of them well enough and how the governement was thinking about redrawing theiir license. Incredibly small with
EYES BIGGER THAN THE BRAIN and the ability to fly from tree to tree, they're extraordinary little creatures, defenitley not to be missed when you're visisting Bohol.
Not far up the road our cruise on the Loboc river was waiting for us. The 'buffet lunch' was quite
simple really but the entertainment on the boat was fantastic! I got the feeling of being in South America actually, the singer was wearing a little straw head and was singing some spanish songs and with the scenery, I could as well have been on the Amazon.
The boat trip was great and got even greater when we stopped at a large platform on the banks of the river ( we didn't know about the entertainment previos to getting on) with a large band on it. Singing local music, performed by local artist and playing local instruments, (well, how local is the banjo?) we loved it! I would've bought a CD if it would've been available!
Two guys were banging these 2 large bamboo poals together, and the idea was to dance in between them whilst dodging the bamboo clapping against each other, avoiding your feet to be crushed. Fantastic!
The boat went a little further upstream where there was a small water fall. From here it was back to where we got on, accompanied by the singer and lots of great songs, getting in the mood for christmas.
The other sights we visited included a long bamboo hanging ridge
over the Loboc river, another old church and the largest python in captivity (in the world or the Philppines?) and it was large!!!
Back on Panglao we spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach drinking Gin 'n tonic and Rum 'n coke. When it was absolutely dark we went back to the bungalow, satisfied with a great day.
The second last day we simply didn't do anything. Slept late, enjoyed good food, swam and slept some more on the beach, reading books and listenening to music. A proper holiDAY. One that you end up having all the time when you travel around South East Asia for a while longer than the two weeks we had. On our very last day on Panglao though, we got up early again (5 a.m. this time!) and were seated in a banca by 6 a.m. Our mission: dolphin watching. Well, this turned out to become dolphin chasing. That day a few more tourists had the idea to go dolphin watching and so the number of bancas totaled 15+!
There were numerous groups of them swimming around, and as soon as one ofthe boats would spot them, it was all or nothing
I love this photo...
It looks like Zhu knocked over the woman and took her place...for the other 14 or so boat, full throttle and gone were the dolphins... Twice we were the lucky ones to spot them first, so we did get the opportunity to get some photo's.
After an hour or so chasing each other trying to get a glimpse of the dolphins, we had had enough and asked John our boatman to take us to Balicasag Island. This island, which is mainly inhabited by ........ who live inside the island and one large resort, has a reef surrounding it with marine park status. Therefore we weren't alowed to get on to the island. Instead, john told us, we had to jump off the boat and follow the white floaters that marked the border of the reef.
Both a little scared to swim such a long way, quite far off the beach (not knowing yet we would be swimming along a massive drop off) we talked some courage ino each other and jumped in...
WOW! I've got to admit, this was the most spectacular place I've ever snorkeled! Amazing, immediately after jumping in fish were just everywhere! After a few minutes we were even so lucky to see a young turtle,
still the size of a small dog though.
It had 2 'cleaning' fish on its back and like John told us later, we were very lucky indeed, usually they swim in deeper waters.
Sotogether,keeping a close eye on each other we followed the floaters and made sure we didn't get too close to the drop off, because the water there looked mighty deep and mighty blue. Too deep and too blue for us too feel comfortable.
So when we got to a point where we really were quite far off the beach (the reef was sort of moon shaped off the beach) and the drop off suddenly took a turn towards the beach, like a crevice over which we had to swim were we to follow the marked border of the marine park, we got scared.... The water temperature and the time we had already been swimming started to make our muscles cramp, so we shouted at one of the little boats to take us back to our banca.
Of course this cost us, the lady wanted 300 at first,but I got it down to 200 pesos for a 10 minute peddle... Oh well, anything better than swimming the distance
back agaian ourselves.
If you're ever planning to go here, try and find John on Alona beach, his boat is called
John Michael, he's really cool.
He totally understood our fear, so especially for us, he took us to a place where the water calmer and not too deep.
Here we snorkeled some more, wishing we had an underwater camera, it really was absolutely amazing!
It was a nice trip, and back on Panglao we spend as long as possible on the beach again, waiting for the sun to set on our last day before we had to go back. Well there was still Manila for a day and a half, but how does that compare to the islands?
The guy of Alona Grove was waiting to drive us to the airport the next morning at ...., which of course was way to early. Waiting times tend not too be too long at airports such as Taglibaran Bohol airport. A tiny waiting room and 2 airplanes parked outside.
The plane, although it was a short flight, climbed to high altitude because of the weather. I did get a great shot of the airport leaving though, showing the runway and
reef around the island.
(Sigh) Manila ahead....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.242s; Tpl: 0.019s; cc: 28; qc: 85; dbt: 0.1532s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
liliram
liliram
hey, glad you enjoyed our islands!
enjoyed reading your blogs..........have not been to Bantayan Island myself. I should plan to go anytime soon.....