Bohol Trip!

Websites in the Philippines are lacking.  For such a big place, it is really hard to find things online – it amazes me how many restaurants or other service providers do not have websites.  And when they do, it doesn’t have all the information you want to find.

So I decided to blog my trips while we’re in the Philippines in two ways:  my own recap of the trip, as I usually do, posting pictures and telling you what we did, and also a more in depth review, with information of the hotel, activities we did, prices and whether I recommend it or not, along with the pros and cons.  Hopefully, after enough trips it can help someone somewhere find the information they are looking for!

And without further ado…  We left early on Friday morning and hopped on a flight to Bohol – a little over an hour later, we could see this from the plane’s window:

Can you imagine how excited I got?  The airport in Bohol was probably the smallest I ever seen, but it also meant that a couple of minutes after landing, we were already on our way to the hotel!

And our hotel room was adorable with bamboo walls!

And a LOT of green!

We were right by the beach too, but when we arrived, it was drizzling, but Karl mentioned how he rather have rain at the beach than sun during a work day – true that!

After a ridiculous long nap (it even rained quite a bit during our nap), we went out for dinner.  Can you beat this view?  (And don’t you just love those lights?)

After wasting the whole day on Friday doing nothing due to the weather, on Saturday we woke up to sun!  We went out for breakfast at the beach (I can get used to this life…).

Then took a car to go explore Bohol.  First stop?  The Tarsier monkeys!!!  They’re the smallest monkey in the world, and even full grown they are about fist size!

Weirdest thing ever though, aren’t they?  Look at those fingers, like alien fingers!  And those big eyes!

With their eyes closed, they kind of look like yoda, don’t they?

So tiny!

After that, we hit up the Chocolate Hills!  They are 1,776 of them in about a 20 square miles area.  During the dry season, they are brown instead of green, hence the name.  It’s one of the most visited places in the Philippines, and no surprise there:  the place is gorgeous!

Chocolate hills as far as the eyes can see!

I even took a picture of my camera bag, which I bought from Etsy a while back.  Love it!

After the Chocolate Hills, we hit up the butterfly conservatory.  It was small but informative!

There was ton of green space in Bohol, and our driver stopped midway to let us take a picture of it too!

Then, it was off to the hanging bridge (which luckily is still hanging!).

And it was off to lunch on a boat, where we stopped to see these cuties singing and dancing – it was pretty awesome!

Then off to the oldest church in the Philippines, the Baclayon Church.

And lastly we stopped at the Sanduguan Monument.

When we got back to the hotel, the beach wasn’t looking too good – too much seaweed on the sand, and too many rocks once you attempted to go in the water.  So off to the pool we went.  Now how pretty is this?

The next morning we were up at 5:30am for a boat trip!  First stop?  Dolphin watching!

There were at least a couple of dozen dolphin out there, and it was definitely my favorite part of the trip!

Yes, the baby ones were jumping all over the place!

From there, we went to Balicasag Island.  We were going to walk around the island, but our feet was killing us.  Why?  See that sand out there?

Yep, not really sand, but smooth coral instead.  Can you say “ouch”?

It was so pretty though!

Our last stop of the morning was the virgin island.  See the picture below?  Yep, that’s the whole island. 

We walked around the WHOLE island.  I think it took us 10 minutes.  It was so cute!

And the water around it, very shallow, even a hundred feet away…

I found a bunch of hermit crabs…

And Karl really freaked out when I showed him this, just 5 feet from where we were standing.  Yikes!  A huge sea urchin!

And that’s when he said it was time to go back to the hotel

The hotel beach there was perfect on Sunday!  And we enjoyed some Filipino brew…

And spent the rest of the day here…  Where we even got a massage (right at the beach!).

After yet another dinner in front of the ocean, the next day we woke up to yet another beautiful day, spent the morning in the water (where I got to play with a starfish!), and after seeing a few jelly fish, we decided it was time to call it a day and head off to the airport!

The trip?  Was awesome!  If you ever in the Philippines, I definitely recommend a stop in Bohol.