Bohol, The Philippines
26th May – 29th May 2018
While sat in Puerto Princesa airport, waiting for our delayed boarding call, we treated ourselves to a nice drink and a cookie. We had resisted for a while, but the delay encouraged us a little, and we gave in. We continued to sit and wait, until we were finally called to board at about 1.30 – almost two hours late.
On the plane, I tried to get on top of some blog writing, while Joe had a nap, as always. Although, it was only a short flight, so there wasn’t much time to do much.
Once we had landed in Mactan-Cebu and collected our bags, we tried to figure out the best way to get to the port, as we wanted to get a boat straight to Bohol, so that we weren’t wasting more days travelling. We priced up Grabs and taxis, and it was all more than we expected, but we had no other option.
The traffic through Cebu was awful, so what should have been a ten minute drive, actually took an hour and a half, and apparently that’s about normal!
When we finally arrived at the port, we joined a long line for boat tickets, before we could go into the terminal. We went through security, paying more fees, and checked in with the boat people, paying more fees to check our bags, before we could finally try and relax. We found a couple of seats, and waited for our boarding call, for our 5.40 departure.
On the boat, we had assigned seats which was good. We got settled and before we knew it, we were on our way. We took it in turns to play games on the iPad, while trying to watch the movie on the screens, but we couldn’t hear much.
Just under two hours later, we arrived in Bohol. We tried to find a ride to our hostel, but the taxis were quite expensive. In the end, we settled on a price with a tricycle driver, even though we knew it would take longer. On the way we had to stop for fuel, which was weird, and by the time we got there, our price seemed to increase by PHP100 but I was too tired to argue at this point.
At the hostel, there didn’t seem to be anyone around at first, so we had to wait, but we were eventually greeted by a lovely lady who took us to our room. Sadly, there was no aircon in the room, only fans, which don’t do an awful lot of good. We settled up with the lady, before heading out for some dinner.
We had a little walk into the town, but as it was almost 9 o’clock and it was only a small village, everywhere was shut. Once we had accepted the fact we weren’t eating, we made our way back to the hostel, with a bottle of sprite instead.
Back at the hostel, we chilled out, did a bit of planning, and watched an episode, before falling asleep. Joe got up in the middle of the night to watch the football, waking me momentarily, but I didn’t struggle to fall back to sleep.
The next day, we woke up at about 7.30, as we had to have breakfast at 8, as it was included in the price of the hostel. We got ready and were a few minutes late heading out to breakfast, so it was already sat on the table waiting for us.
After breakfast, we finished getting ready and packed our bag for the day, before heading out. I had read in the information booklet at the hostel that we could get a bus up to the Chocolate Hills, so we decided to do this first, so we went to the town to find a bus.
We didn’t have to wait very long before the bus arrived, which was good, as it was hot. It wasn’t an airconditioned bus, but the windows were down so there was a nice breeze. We managed to get a seat, which proved to be very useful, as it was a long journey!
After about an hour and a half, we arrived at the Chocolate Hills. We had a short walk up a hillside, with lots of offers of motorbike rides, but it wasn’t a tough walk, so we stuck with it. It was hot, but we stayed in the shade and were soon at the bottom of the steps to the viewpoint.
We climbed the steps straight away and we were soon at the top with views of the hills. Unfortunately, we weren’t in the season for them to be ‘chocolate’, as this happens when the land has dried out and the grass goes a chocolate brown colour. Instead, they were lots of hills covered in greenery, but they still looked pretty.
Once we had taken some photos, we went back down the steps to look in some souvenir shops. There wasn’t anything that I wanted in the shops, so we carried on back down the hill.
At the bottom, we looked in more shops, where I found a mini purse to use as a patch, before we went back to the road to find a bus. On the way up to the Chocolate Hills, we had passed a tarsier conservation which we wanted to visit. It wasn’t the same one that we had researched, but as long as we saw tarsiers, we didn’t mind.
When the bus arrived, it was already so full! We squeezed on, quite literally and were squashed in between Filipinos for most of the journey. As there were no buttons to stop the bus, people would shout or bang the roof of the bus whenever they wanted to get off, and I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do this. Fortunately, there were a few people who wanted to get off at the tarsier place, so we were sorted.
Once we managed to squeeze our way back off the bus, we paid our entry into the conservation and made our way inside. On our way around the conservation, we saw lots of tarsiers, which were tiny! Apparently there bodies only grow up to 15cm! They were much smaller than I imagined them to be. Some of them were sleeping, but the ones who had their eyes open, were the best, as the eyes were huge! We walked around slowly and watched one of them jump from tree to tree.


After we were finished looking at the tarsiers, we made our way back to the main road, to wait for a bus. Fortunately, so we thought, there was one coming right away, so we signalled it. However, when it stopped, it was even more full than before, and we were sent on the roof! This was a different experience, and something we had seen the locals do before, but within minutes, I had been hit by and branch and it had started raining!
The rain got heavier and heavier and then I was cold. We shouted down a couple of times to see if we could come inside, and they eventually let us, but that was a squeeze again! We stood up for the rest of the way, and decided to take the bus past Baclayon, where our hostel was, to Tagbilaran, where the port was, to see where the bus went for when we needed to go back to Cebu.
Annoyingly, the bus ended up miles from the centre of Tagbilaran and then we were stranded. We weighed up our options of what to do for the best, and contemplated walking into the centre to get boat tickets for the following day, but I had a really bad head ache, so in the end, we just got a tricycle back to Baclayon.
Back in Baclayon, we had a little wander around to find somewhere for dinner, before heading back to the hostel. At the hostel, we had a chill out and tried to cool off. We both ended up having a little nap, which helped my headache, before we got up again, to head back out for dinner.
We had another little walk around to see our options, before settling at a burger stand. The food was unbelievably cheap, so it was a risk, but we watched them cook it fresh in front of us, so that made me feel better. For two burgers (which were probably the world’s thinnest), we paid PHP50 (75p) and it wasn’t even the worst burger I’ve ever eaten!
After the burgers, we walked down to the front to see if there was anything else we fancied, but as we couldn’t decide, we walked back to the hostel. On the way back, we stopped at another food stand and bought some fries to share. The stand owners were deaf, so we had to communicate with sign language, which was interesting.
Once we were full, we walked back to the hostel, and chilled out for the rest of the evening. We watched an episode in bed, before falling asleep.
Although we had no set plans the following day, we still couldn’t have a massive lie in, because breakfast was ready at 8 again. We got up and went straight for food, although neither of us were massively hungry.
After breakfast, we got our bags ready, and had a shower, to try and freshen ourselves up a bit, but when there’s only a fan to cool you, that’s not easy. Once we were both ready, we checked out and made our way towards the main street of Baclayon to catch a jeepney.
It didn’t take us long to flag down a jeepney, which luckily had seats for us both, with our big bags. However, as the journey went on, the jeepney soon filled up and I was squished against some poor boy with both of my bags digging in me. The journey only cost us PHP8 (11p) each though, so we can’t really complain.
We arrived in Tagbilaran just before 10.30, and once I had wriggled off the jeepney with my bags, we went for a walk to find a tourist shop to book our boat tickets. The first shop we found only sold the more expensive tickets, so we carried on wandering.
After finally finding a shop, we bought our tickets, just in time for the rainfall. Luckily it passed quite quickly, as we had a twenty minute walk ahead of us, with all of our stuff. We made our way to the port, where we then had to pay a terminal fee and another fee to check in our bags, before we could go inside. We sat and waited for the boarding call.
About ten minutes before the departure time, we boarded the boat, and found our seats. The journey was about two hours again, which we filled our time with playing on the iPad, and watching Thor (with no sound) on the screen.
When we finally arrived back in Cebu, we had to find ourselves a taxi to our hostel. We couldn’t get any wifi, to get a Grab, so had to pay the more expensive prices. One woman quoted us PHP600, which was double the price we paid coming, so we declined that offer. I eventually got someone down to PHP450, so we could get on our way.
Despite the fact that it should have only been a short journey, it took over an hour to get to the hostel – the traffic is awful in cities in the Philippines! When I paid the driver, he tried to get away with not giving me change, because of the traffic, and tried to make out it was my fault. I maybe would have felt a little more generous if he wasn’t so rude about it, but I got my change in the end.
Once we had checked in, and made our way to the room, we had a bit of chill out time, before wandering out. It was too early for dinner, but we were getting hungry, so we went to weigh up our options. We got a donut to keep us going and found somewhere to go for tea.
On our way back to the hotel, we had a look around a few shops, before going back up to the room. We had a couple of hours chilling out, while I sorted some things out for home and we caught up on some bits and bobs.
Just after 6, we went back out for dinner. We went to a stand and got a schwarma each, which I thought was a wrap, but it wasn’t, apparently the schwarma means the way it was cooked. It was still tasty though.
Once we had eaten, we went back to the room and got ourselves an early night, after a couple of episodes, ready for a very early start the next day.
The alarm went off at 3am, for us to get ready for our final domestic flight in the Philippines. We struggled to get up, but only had to get dressed and brush our teeth, so it didn’t take too long.
Once we were ready, we ordered a Grab to take us to the airport. We had a flight booked to get back to Manila, as we were spending the day there, before flighting out in the evening. We got to the airport in traffic free conditions! Kind of expected for that time of day though.
At the airport, we checked in and made our way through security and straight to the gate. It was a busy gate, with lots of flights going to Manila at different times, all with AirAsia. Surprisingly, we boarded on time, and were on our way after some confusion with some passengers about which plane to get on.
Fortunately, the flight was only a short one, and when we landed back in Manila, our lovely driver, Greg, was there to greet us again. We were so lucky, that Joe’s old company looked after us again for our second, very short trip to Manila. As we had already seen most of what Manila had to offer, and the bits we hadn’t seen, we couldn’t because of the times we had.
Although we got stuck in traffic, the journey from the airport, back to the Ascott Hotel for the day, was only short. We arrived at about 8am, where we were able to check in, as they had booked it for the night before, for us.
Once we were checked in, we went upstairs, where we were greeted with our bags. We dropped them in the room, before heading down to breakfast, to literally fill up for the day. We sat and slowly ate our way through the breakfast buffet, for well over an hour. I couldn’t manage an awful lot though, and even made myself feel very sick at one point, so I gave up while Joe carried on.
As we had a few bits to buy, we decided to go shopping after breakfast, but when we got down there, we found out that the shops didn’t open until 10, so we were too early. Instead, we went back up to the room to get ready for a pool day, while we waited.
Once the shops were open, we went back down and grabbed what we needed, before spending the rest of the day by the pool. We did some sunbathing, some napping and some swimming to pass the day away nicely.
As Greg was collecting us again at 6.30 to take us back to the airport, we left the pool area mid-afternoon to freshen up and make sure we were ready to leave. After showering, we nipped to the mall to get some food for dinner, to take with us, as it was still too early to eat. We had a little bit of time and chill out in the room, before Greg arrived.
We had our last chauffeured drive back to the airport, ready to leave the Philippines, feeling so grateful for all of the help and support from Joe’s old work – it really wouldn’t have been as easy in Manila without them!
Bohol was another beautiful Filipino Island, which, again, we didn’t have an awful lot of time to explore. We did, however, have a few interesting bus rides that we won’t be in a rush to repeat! As we finish our time in the Philippines, we feel, as we spent more than two thirds of our time travelling, we would definitely recommend more time is needed to see places, as there is a plane, boat and bus needed, to get between two places. We’re happy to have seen a glimpse of its beauty though, as we pack our bags again and head to Vietnam, a country we have only heard good things about!
To travel is to live, Katie x
3 Replies to “Bohol, The Philippines”
Brilliant photos again. Enjoy Vietnam. Lots of love x
Great pic on top of the bus😂. You might’ve mentioned there was a spider pic as well, ugh! So interesting tho. 😘xxx
I’ve looked at your journal from time to time and think you are doing a great job and obviously having an unbelievable time.”Good on yer!”Travel is such an important part of education and the pictures you paint of your travels(as well as show)are so clear and interesting.BC.