Alona beach, Panglao Island

Connected by a short bridge and located right at the southwest tip of Bohol is where you will find the small island of Panglao.

A very short distance from the port of Tagbilaran it is home to some lovely white sand beaches but Panglao is mostly renowned internationally for being a tropical paradise for divers.

This is the pleasant view I had eating a late breakfast at my resort and trying to figure out how I should spend what was left of my last day in Panglao

I then decided to have a stroll down the Alona beach to look for an idea

A small banca on the way

Here some more, they actually are everywhere along the beach

I eventually saw a few motorbikes for hire and a guide offered me to take a tour around the island so off I went on a scooter. Every possible form of transportation is for hire in the Philippines and you will find no shortage of offers to do pretty much anything you want.

My first stop was at a roman catholic church that we crossed on the way

No idea what this was but I took a picture as I was intrigued

Back on the road crossing one of those Filipino tricycle

The beaches of the northern part of Panglao island

Low tide at this time of day

Native kids playing along the beach

Back on the road again

The Hinagdanan underground Cave is a cool little spot if you want to take a break from the heat and take a dip in the lagoon filled with freshwater

local kids seem to love diving into the 9 foot deep waters

Very hard to take proper pictures with my little Canon Ixus camera but the Panglao cave is filled with stalactites and stalagmites

More tricycles for hire on the way

Next stop the Panglao mini-zoo

some of the varieties of birds it holds

But it’s not limited to birds there are of course other animals though the highlight if you happen to be lucky enough to arrive just at the right time is the boa that’s fed once a week a live piglet

This time direction: Bohol Bee Farm

Me with a few bees

School’s out

Our last stop was at my favorite beach the Dumaluan

Longer & wider than the Alona with less development is one of the reasons

Also you’ll see friendly local faces there. The Dumaluan beach resort rents huts there for 150 pesos per day and tents for 350 if you want to stay overnight so you’ll feel like you actually are in the Philippines and not on some beach in Spain surrounded by Caucasians. That was the main downside I found of staying at Alona Beach.

This is where I was suggested to go but I strongly recommend to book in advance since it was full when I wanted to do reservations there

The vast majority of resorts are located on the southwest coat along the 1 km long Alona beach. This portion of the island is more geared towards divers though and if you rather have a larger & longer beach in a more quiet area I would recommend the northern resorts on Dumaluan Beach, Bolod beach, Momo beach or Duljo beach. A few others on the Eastern portion are available where you can find the San Isodro beach, Bikini beach, and Libaong beach. Nowhere near as busy it’s a great spot to relax and get away from it all.

Back on Alona beach a few hours later trying to pick what I want to eat from the seafood displayed. Certainly fresh as some of it was still moving

Living seashell

Again the evening finishing late at around 5AM with the company of some tourists and expats

My last Cebu Pacific flight going back to Manila

Tagbilaran view from the air

The island of Bohol here on the Loboc river cruise

Bohol the tenth biggest island of the Philippines (out of ± 7107) is situated just south of Cebu city has a wide array of possible attractions. The thing I loved about it is that you can start (and end) your days laid back on a fabulous white sand beach enjoying a Piña Colada while feeling you’ve actually done some mileage and accomplished something during the daytime. There is a lot exploring to do on the ever changing scenery of this captivating island.

We had an early start and departed from the Cebu city harbor at 6:00 AM with the fast ferry that reached the town of Tagbilaran in Bohol in just around 2 hours. This is by far for the price the best solution if you don’t want to lose half a day or more just reaching your destination. The small island of Panglao where all the best beach resorts are is just a 20-30 minute ride from Tagbilaran. Now to get there the easiest way is to hire a car (you will be submerged with offers as soon as you walk off the pier) that will get you there for 200-300 pesos. It’s also a good idea to bargain for a driver for the day from the harbor since the prices will be cheaper than if you hire one via the hotel resorts of Panglao by 30-50%. Don’t be in a hurry the prices will go down from the initial 1500 to 700-800 in no time…

Now since a picture is worth a thousand words lets have a look at the Bohol portion of the trip shall we?

One of many Super Cat ferries at the Cebu harbor

Approaching the Bay of Tagbilaran

Inside Tagbilaran city (not my picture but I really loved the colorful tricycles featured in it)

Scenery of the island of Bohol

Driving in direction of Panglao island where we will be staying

8:30 AM finally arrived at the Lost Horizon resort

Now facing the other side..Not all that bad is it?

Catching a glimpse of one side of Alona beach

Ok, after a little walk around the beach time for breakfast then back on the road we go

First stop: The Loboc river floating restaurant cruise

A really great experience for 250 pesos per person you get the all-you-can eat buffet with a small band playing on board while the boat slowly passes by the dense vegetation and mountains surrounding the river. You should also be charmed by the small pittoresque nipa (palm tree) huts here and there along the way and especially the local kids swinging from the palm trees and diving into the water a mere few meters away from the boat. Just before the U-turn at the end of the river you’ll get a live performance of a mix of adults playing the yukalaylee and kids singing among other songs the “welcome, to my native land” with a slight touch of Cebuano accent.

A view of the buffet and the band in the back getting ready to play some music

Van-Van pouring herself some soup

View of the boat from my seat

Hey it seems I am in good company! Feels good to be out of Cebu city at last during Vanessa’s day off work

Crossing another boat on its way back

And two more it seems there are quite a few of these running around

Bathers on the way… Notice the contrast in colors of the river

I would guess this is due to the rainy season & its rainfalls that bring mud into the water

Local kids going for a dive from the palm trees as the rain starts to fall. The good thing with tropical weather is this never really last long. By the time we get on the way back it will be all but a distant memory…

Going a bit more upstream

Here we stop for a halt to hear some locals playing music

And back we go

Now the next stop one of the countries most popular destinations : The Chocolate Hills

These quite unique 1260 or so 40 meters high hills are believed to have been formed by Limestone & coral deposit that were sculpted by thousands of years of erosion. They actually are pretty green at this time of year and not chocolate as their named would make you believe. This only occurs during the end of the dry season when the vegetation on the hills is roasted brown.

Rice field

The local inhabitants version of the origins of these hills is a bit more romantic since the legend goes that they were calcified tears of a Giant who was heartbroken by the death his Mortal lover. Here are more pictures of the Chocolate Hills in from all sides taken from on top of the view point:

Me at the hanging bridge over the Sipatan river (with as I noticed later by zooming in two Filipinos nicely posing in the back)

The Tarsier: Often referred as the worlds smallest monkeys at around 10 cm tall they are in fact more closely related to lemurs with their weird looking over sized eyes

Here is a cute little tarsier couple

Me with two of my new gremlin looking friends

The two of them alone

Each one of these little tarsier creatures eye is in fact bigger than its brain

Not too lively during the day as they are active at night only

Blood compact site depicting the scene where Spaniard Colon Legazpi & tribal chief Sikatuna officially ceased hostilities with the symbolic gesture of making ‘one blood’ by mixing both their bloods with wine and drinking to their new peace agreement.

Before going on with sharing pictures and what not here’s a little short description of my travel itinerary:

• Arrival on the October 11 in Manila via Bahrain & Paris (5 days spent in & around discovering the city).
• Departure by plane on October 16 south for the small tropical island of Boracay for three days spent in paradisiac settings.
• Departure by plane on October 18 for Cebu city about an hour flight again south.
• Departure by fast ferry on October 21st for the Island of Panglao & Bohol.
• Departure by plane on October 23rd from Bohol to Manila for one final night in the city.
• Leaving back from Manila on the 24th when I arrived home but 36 hours later.

• Blue bag : Manila , Boracay, Bantayan & Bohol
• Green Bag: Military NTCC Training in Elsenborn

Sounds like not much of a tough choice to make ?

Sadly I got to get through the one I consider an unpleasant annoyance to be able to move onto the interesting one…