Tuesday 15 January 2013

The Philippines - The attractions of Bohol Island


Today we decided to go and see some of the sights of Bohol. We hired a car and a driver to take us around. There wasn’t much information anywhere so I called on Wikipedia to help me out. I supply the photos and wiki will supply the explanations.
We were given lots of options to choose from and we took our picks.


 The weather seemed ok so we wanted to start with the Chocolate Hills. These are unusual geological formations. There are more than a 1000 of them! They are cone shaped and covered in green grass that dries during dry season to a brownish colour, hence the name. Nobody really knows why they are here or how did they form. They are unique in the whole world.

 When leaving the hills, we drove through a man-made forest. This is a mahogany forest that is 2km long. The trees are very tall and no other vegetation grows in the forest apart from them. To be very honest to us it just looked like any other forest and we couldn’t even see where did it start or end. We didn’t take a photo. It is one of Bohol’s attractions, though, so I thought I mention it.

Next up was to see the tarsiers. They got their names for their extremely long tarsus bones of their feet (whatever they are). These creatures are tiny and very weird, in every sense of the word. They are very small (10-15cm), kind of look like E.T. and Yoda mixed together (check out the fingers!!), very cute with huge eyes that are apparently as big as their brain! They cannot move them however they can turn their heads in 180 degrees. Their third finger is as long as their arm! They hunt at night and sleep during the day and that is when we can have a good look at them. Here they are:




I was convinced, however, that these animals were not real. They were sleeping under cover (VERY conveniently) and not moving AT ALL! Paul told me it’s because they are asleep but they can’t fool me! I think they are just toy animals that some people stuck up on those trees and everybody pretends that they are alive. They are just SO TINY! I’m still not convinced that they were real at all.

Then we moved on to the hanging bridges. There’s not much to write about them so look at the pics instead.




 Next came the fun part: zip lining. I’ve never done it before so was excited to try it. It is called the Sui-Slide Zipline, apparently the highest (200m) and the longest (480m) in the Philippines. It goes from one mountain to another giving you an amazing bird’s eye view over the river between.


Then we went off to do some river kayaking. We got to the river where there was a boat offering a cruise on the boat with lunch. We said we don’t want lunch, we want kayaks. After a few minutes discussion we were told that we can be taken to another place but we will have to walk for a kilometre. We said it’s ok. Well, it turned out that that kilometre was through a muddy dirt road full of puddles in the middle of nowhere. When we finally got to the water we were shocked to find an actual hotel there! How do people learn about the existence of this place at all? And how do they find it?! Well, the place did have kayaks however they were only to be used by the guest so unless we stay there we cannot use them. We started back on our kilometre long dirt road. ‘Adventure!’ as our taxi driver said. We gave up on kayaking.

Lastly we were taken to one of the Philippines’ oldest church, the Baclayon Church. I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen a more sadder looking church than this. It might have looked imposing and awe-inspiring when it was built but by now it just looks like an old building where huge parts of the walls were green with mould. The whole place made me very sad. We didn’t take pictures.

When we finally got home around two we felt very tired so we had a little power nap. By the time we woke up the sky had opened and was pouring down with rain. We watched it from our balcony drinking coffee. I hope tomorrow will be better, our last day in Bohol.   


Special thanks for Ray and Rosemary Gregory for giving us the chance to see the unique Chololate Hills.

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