Nachtrag Bohol

Tipps for Bohol

1. Go diving or at least snorkling!
2. Try to make another tour beside the normal tourist daytrip, speaking of riding a buggy, boatrip to one of the islands around, visit the people there, hike a day around the chocolate hills, go to the tarsier sanctuary, ...
3. Try seafood at the beach or barbeque at the shore
4. Reserve a hotel if you like to have a airport trasfer :) (there are no cabs, only tricycles)

Ok, I don’t just want to leave you with the funny-grumpy comment of Bernd an Philipp :o)

From Day tour through Bohol

We really had a great time in Bohol – beginning with sunshine weather the whole trip.
We stayed at Panglao Island to be near the beach as we wanted to upgrade our scuba diver :) But I saw some nice beaches on the main island of Bohol as well. First of all we walked down the beach, had a look at the other hotels (we stayed at Bohol Divers Club, but all of the hotels at the beach looked nice ^^) and were surprised that there were almost more diving schools than hotels! The beach was really nice, clean, not to big, with nice restaurants and cafes but not to crowded. But as the seastars and sea urchins come almost to the edge it’s better to go snorkling and diving than swimming – I was afraid to smash a seastar, the boys were a little afraid to step in a sea urchin.
But our hotel had a nice pool as well – so we went swimming there and enjoyed the diving spots in the sea. They really have nice walls, caves and a lot of fish and corals! Bernd and Philipp found their first nemos with anemonas ^^ Our french dive instructor Manu enriched our adventure and surprised us talking Visaya (wenn auch mit Akzent „den hört man ja von weiten, dass das ein Franzose ist“ Bernd). He left Bernd more optimistic, didn’t see anyone copying in the test and lead us calmly through the ocean.
It was really good, that Emilie gave me tipps and contacts for our trip. So I could ask Joel everything I needed :) Joel is building up a community based tourism program in Bacloyan, a town next to Tagbilaran. There we made a heritage walk with some of the town people (wir waren sozusagen die Versuchskanninchen, weil die Tour erst im Dezember so richtig los gehen soll und die Anwohner mitgegangen sind, um sich ein Bild zu machen wie die Tour mal aussehen könnte). They brought us to the old, moldy but charming city with an organ fixed by a german organ maker. In the curch yard we got some typical biscuits with the famous Boholian chocolate *yummy* and could see how they make the broa biscuits.
Then we drove along the old houses and visited a lady with a cavern in her garden, where people hid during war-time and where a dutch biologist found rare shrimps last year. And again we got some cake, juice and fruits :) The people were really charming and offer next tourist homestay to have the real philippine feeling.
For lunch we were really lucky, as there was fiesta in town. So we went to the house of touristguide Eric and got free buffet. Afterwards we were ready for the fun part: Buggy driving. The boys really enjoyed speeding through the hills and forests of Bohol and our guide had some efforts to slow them down ;) In contrast to the boys I was happy, that the road was dry, when I took my turn, so we only got dusty not muddy. And guess the town uphill had fiesta, too – so we ate traditionell food at the house of the chief of the barangay!
The next day we did more of the normal tourist thing and went on the daytrip throught the island. We started with lunch on the Loboc River, that was really nice, but Philipp was annoyed by the philippine countrysinger when he started singing christmas carols in September... Moreover we met the Ati tribe, which isn’t really located along the river and just were picture motives. Almost like in the Zoo you could go to the kid with the saurian, the guys with the spears, the girls with the coconut or the fire artist to have a tourist picture – we just gave them tip, and left without a picture :P
Next stop were the Chocolate Hills (named after Hersheys Kisses, as they look alike in dry season), where we „climbed“ up 214 steps (referring to Feb 14 – Valentinesday, as a lot of couples meet up there). The view was breathtaking, but again we avoided the very touristy thing. Do you know the pictures of tourist on a broomstick flying over the Chocolate Hills? The shoot this infront of a big canvas, infront of a picture of the Hills....
Going on we met the biggest python and the famous Tarsiers/Koboldmakis. Big eyes, 15-20 centimeters in height, jumping up to 5 meters and nocturnal (- thanks Matt I learned a word ;). Therefore they were looking as living on drugs (otherwise they would escape the 2 meter fence, wouldn’t they?). Mating is connected to saliva, urin and looking for the best smelling of them. And Eric told us, that if you try to bring a tarsier to another place than Bohol they commit suicide! Either they drown theirselves in the drinking jar, band their head against the cage or just don’t eat anymore – sad little things, no wonder they are endangered.