Bohol

It was about January last year that my friend and I impulsively bought airline tickets on sale. We had no particular destination in mind; we were thinking that whichever destination gives us that sale price is the one meant to be explored. And so the story of how our Bohol adventure began.

I almost forgot about this trip because I was busy with work, home, dramatic break-ups and trekking. Good thing my friend reminded me. It was chaotic planning this because everything was last-minute. Then we decided to just go there, play it by ear – DIY style. No hotel reservations, no contacts…nothing.

So here come’s the day of our flight, looking out the window I see this:

Outside Tagbilaran Airport tour operators will actually approach you, it’s best to negotiate at this point for the airport transfers and countryside tours. Hotels and resorts in Panglao offers packages at a fixed price but since my friend and I usually take the budget route, we opted not to and negotiated our own tours.

Most of the hotels we go into are fully booked, but before reaching Alona Beach, we found Panglao Regents Park Resort Hotel. We booked for 2 nights, negotiated rates for our dolphin watching and island hopping the following day before deciding to go out and check the stretch of Alona Beach.

I was not disappointed seeing it. Although it may not be as gorgeous as the fine white sands in Boracay, but it was heaven on its own – stepping on the soft white sand. We checked out the stores and restaurants before deciding on having dinner at Trudi’s Place. In between catching up with updates on each other, drinking ice-cold beer and enjoying the ambience; we often get distracted with the eye candies (read: walking six-packed abs in board shorts) on the beach and the 3 guys beside our table (well, my friend was in stalker mode and discreetly took a picture of a tall hunk in dreads…hay!).

Went back to our hotel to “experience” the pool and slept early because we had a full day itinerary ahead.

We woke up at around 4:30am, had coffee before changing into our swimwear and wait for Manong Tito our seatour/boat contact to pick us up. It was still a bit dark at 6am when we left Alona Beach so we had a gorgeous view of the sunrise around Pamilacan Island sea.

We saw a clump of boats in the middle of the sea surrounding Pamilacan Island waiting for the dolphins to appear. And when they did, got too busy watching them play and feed so most of the shots I took were either too far or too blurred. 3 of them was right in front of our boat and I was too busy squealing “omigod! omigod! omigod! cuuutteee!” before I realized that I am supposed to take a picture of them (duh).

Had breakfast in Balicasag Island, explored Virgin Island before going back to Alona Beach to start our countryside tour (we only chose a few sites we wanted to see).

Started our countryside tour with the man-made forest, went to the tarsier sanctuary, chocolate hills, pythons, blood compact site and souvenir hunting.

We were back at the hotel by 6pm, went to the beach again, had drinks and dinner at the same place, went to the pool before going back to our room and started packing. I slept as soon as my head hit the pillow. Flight going back was quick and I was almost sorry that my vacation was over. My friend and I agreed that we will be going back, for diving and snorkeling this time 🙂