Bohol Lotta Love

It may now be becoming clear that we’ve fully committed to the song-based title puns. If you are wondering what ‘From Catford to Coron’ is based on, it is ‘From Paris to Berlin’ by Infernal. A big tune! If you don’t know what ‘Bohol Lotta Love’ is based on, then I’m afraid you’re beyond help.

This blog is split into two places we stayed on the island of Bohol: Anda and Loboc. Normally I would do separate blogs but we were so lazy and relaxed at Anda it would have been quite a poor offering, so this is a double episode folks.

PART 1: Anda the sea

Day 8 – Arriving in Anda

Since we had a very early flight and two buses, each with significant wait times and one of which involved being tossed around like an ice cube in a cocktail shaker for 3 hours while hurtling dangerously down coastal roads, it was with great relief we arrived at our accommodation in Anda, Bohol. The pool twinkled at us and the bungalows looked shiny and inviting. “Sorry sir, we do not have your booking on our system.” Disaster. It was not our fault – we had booked and, in fact, paid but they’d made some clerical mistake on the way and all their bungalows were full of existing customers, and we weren’t going to be staying there. They said everything in the area was booked up but offered us their sister hotel in Anda town which was a significant downgrade and had reports of bedbugs in the reviews. Disaster indeed. We were frantically calling around the nice resorts / hotels in the area and nobody had any space. In our desperation, I even called the dive centre we were diving with the following day in case they had any leads for us which, at first they didn’t… though maybe 10 minutes later, glorious Hubert the divemaster calls back and says the resort they’re attached to have a room for 2 nights. It wasn’t the three nights we needed but we gratefully snapped it up and 30 minutes later we arrived in paradise.

So it turned out to be a fantastic mistake because this resort was HELLA nice. Our room’s entrance was 10 steps from a perfect white sand beach. The pool was glorious, the restaurant served some of the best food we’d had to date and had a selection of French and Italian wines for some reason. Exceptionale. Our fairly small list of things we wanted to do in Anda went down the drain fairly quickly as we settled into some reading on sunchairs after a big lunch.

We had found some luxury and decided we’d revel in it for a couple of days. This is our honeymoon after all!

Day 9 – Diving

We did get off our butts a little bit – namely to go diving. Anda is on the South-Eastern corner of Bohol, which is a fairly big island! It’s known for being a chilled out area away from the tourist hotspots, its beaches, and also its diving. It has a 14km stretch of pristine reef down the coastline. Unlike Palawan’s, this coral hasn’t been badly affected, according to Hubert, and is very much thriving. Divers come here in particular for small things, and to photograph them up close – underwater macro photography. This is something that would be soooo up my alley if I had thousands of pounds to aimlessly spend. Alas.

The dive shop was attached to our resort for extra ease, and it was one of the nicest we’d been to. An all-French outfit, it was a bit more serious than most fun-loving dive centres we’d been to, but that was fine! Diving is serious. We’d booked onto 2x day dives today and tomorrow we’d be doing our first ever night dive!

The diving process was so easy, by far the easiest we’ve done: the boat (located 30 seconds walk from the dive centre) would travel for about 5/10 minutes, we’d all jump in together, dive for about 50 minutes, then we’d pop out and nip back to the dive shop for coffee and a chat before heading out again. Normally, diving involves spending an hour getting to a dive site, and then another getting elsewhere after that. In Coron we arrived at the dive centre at 8am and got back to land at about 4pm – it’s a full day and it does you in! This was much more leisurely and suited our newly discovered luxury lifestyle much better.

We loved the diving itself – we’re definitely reef divers at heart (as opposed to wreck). We saw loads of big Green Turtles, various Shrimp (first time seeing them), a Peacock Mantis (Google that!!), some Nudibranches (including the rare Blue Dragon), Garden Eels, Moray Eels, Sea Cucumbers, amazing Ringed Pipefish among many others and millions of tropical colourful fishies.

A job well done we returned to our books and, eventually, beers at sunset.

Day 10 – Night diving

After hunting dragonflies and birds in the hotel grounds in the morning, we sadly had to leave our perfect bubble of Italian wine and perfect service. We’d managed to book a more than lovely room for the night a 5 minute walk down the beach.

This hotel was really nice and had adorable dogs, a tiny adventurous kitten and loads of bird life around the pool / garden area.

We decided to be a touch more adventurous today, and so before our night dive, headed to a nearby cave pool with our trunks and towels packed. As we entered, someone leaving said to us “Enjoy your jump”. We shared an intrigued look and ventured further into the greenery to our hopefully refreshing destination – it was a sweat inducing temperature, to be sure.

The cave pool turned out to be something somewhat resembling a cenote, for those of you who remember my previous blog ‘Yes we Yucatan!’. Children and adults alike were hurling themselves in with gusto / screams of terror. After watching a few people do it (I always need to see someone of a certain size / weight to do it before I am happy), we took the plunge.

We both did it twice and it was great. It had our hearts a-racing and the water was delightful. We dried ourselves off waved goodbye to our new friends and went back to prepare for the night dive.

We had been given a book on dive theory to read regarding the night aspect of the dive, which is technically advanced diving. As Open Water divers (the first stage) we could still do it as an ‘Adventure Dive’. The perk to this is that it counts as one of the 5 advanced dives required to get our Advanced Diver certification, which we plan to do in the somewhat near future. So, we read the quite simple theory and arrived prepared and not quite sure what to expect. We were with 2 other divers. We would have 2x divemasters, one of whom’s boyfriend came along with a big exciting underwater camera. I was advised to leave my GoPro above water and to focus on the dive itself from both a technical perspective and to enjoy the sensory experience that was a night dive, for the first time. I agreed and abided, though I understand if you will never forgive me for this betrayal.

The boat went out with sunset which was marvellous. We dropped overboard just as it was getting dark and, slightly disconcertingly, descended into the darkness below… The main bit of extra equipment you have in a night dive is a torch. We’d learnt signals with torches and whatnot and so we all signalled we were OK. The plan was that the divemaster was out in front, and that Billie and I would follow as buddies. Behind would be the other two divers and the other divemaster and her camera weilding boyfriend would take up the rear. This was all well and good until the people behind us kept crashing into us. Making the space between us and the front divemaster more and more tight and difficult to navigate. We swam out of the way and back to create more space, but this was their cue to jump ahead of us. Then, whenever the divemaster pointed something out, they’d stop and look at it for ages without moving on for us to have a look. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to convey grievances when you’re underwater at night and unable to speak. I will surely be the scuba pioneer to invent the torch signal for “stop being a tosser”. We took it as gracefully as we could and enjoyed the dive regardless.

And it was pretty amazing! Shrimps eyes (or feelers?) glowed back little pinpricks like cats eyes so were super easy to find. These were much bigger than the day shrimp we’d seen. There were eels, an enormous sea worm many many meters long (I thought it was a rope or seaweed or something man-made till I was told it was a worm upon surfacing). A big purple sea slug was extremely cool. Sea snakes were seen and there were many turtles sleeping who we shone our torches away from when we encountered, as they get enough attention in the day as it is. Fair enough. The main event was an octopus… It sat on the sand undulating somewhat. It was very cool indeed. Billie saw it walk off after a while, which I missed as I was being kicked in the face by one of our new tosser diver friends.

We surfaced, alive and well. It was a cool experience I’d be well up for doing again. Hopefully, we get more opportunities in the future!

PART 2 – Rocking around Loboc

As in the clock. Rocking around the clock. But we’re in a place called Loboc…

Captain’s log: I am concerned Billie may turn into a mango. If I had to estimate, I would guess she has consumed 57 mangos, many within various food and drink products; the mango shake is the biggest culprit. God help the mangos of the Philippines.

Day 11 – Loboc, Bohol

For the first time on this honeyed moon, we’re staying inland! But fear not, water is not far: Loboc is an area in Bohol named for the river that runs through it. It’s a magical, big green river and apparently the cleanest in the Philippines. I hope lots of birds like being near it! We plan to do things like stand-up paddleboard down it, see fireflies, watch for birds and also explore the top sights of the island – all from this more central staging area. We’d had our luxury break, it was time to adventure once more.

After an incredibly fortuitous bus journey comprising of two legs where each bus arrived the second we arrived, and departed with us on board moments later, we arrived at the very calm ‘Loboc River Resort’. The river snaked alongside it, as you might hope. We had a really stupendously good lunch and then signed up for the resort tour and firefly tour straight after.

The resort tour involved feeding the monkeys – yay! Our first monkeys. The owner apparently rescued two of them many years ago and put them on this island (they can escape if they wish, there are bridges and connecting trees etc) which they took to gladly and multiplied. There are now 13 of them, with babies among their ranks. They’re fed leftover fruit from the restaurant daily and come to be fed by someone from the resort they know. We were advised never to go to the island alone or they would tear us limb from limb. These Philippine Macaques are native to Bohol, so could be seen around the island if you were lucky – but certainly not reliably!

We were then shown the ducks, who we fed from our hands. One of them very, VERY lightly broke my skin with their eagerness to beak the food from my hand. Not to complain, but just to give you an idea of the fury with which they feed.

Finally, the bunnies. What good resort doesn’t have bunnies, I say? Hardly like stalking rufous-backed kingfishers, but it was a lovely welcome to the hotel.

After this, we went on a short boat trip down the river, under the cover of night, to see fireflies!! So cool. Thousands (I guess) of them, glimmering around a couple of trees by the river side. Almost pulsing light in time with each other (though they aren’t), they look like the Christmas lights of the future. There was also the added bonus of the stars which, from the pitch black viewing platform of the boat, were resplendent and beautiful. With the fireflies in front… very special indeed. Thanks Bohol.

Day 12 – Scooter tour feat. The Chocolate Hills & Tarsiers!

We were up at 6, the first to breakfast at 6.30 and on Scooty V3 by 7 for our very own self-guided tour of the top tourist hotspots on Bohol. You just don’t go to Bohol without doing these two things, OK?

But before delving into these delightful attractions, of which many a blog has doubtless described at length, I would like to write about the lesser chronicled act of scooting through Bohol, because it really is so much fun and so beautiful and easily as good as visiting the sites. The long journey (over an hour) led us through the greenest paddy fields, through little villages and towns and past oddly named shops. Egrets hunt in the rice fields, while water buffalo watch on. We wound up hills to see great views, over many a bridge all of which I assume were crossing the Loboc, which looked so bright and twinkly in places, then rushing deep torrents of green in others. It was truly delightful, though as usual the butt-ache from scooting does start to take away from it after an hour or two!

Right, back to our sights. First comes the Chocolate Hills, surely the premier attraction on the island, synonymous with Bohol. The reason we left early was to avoid the crowds, and also the hottest part of the day. It really was quite fantastic. Majestic to be sure; the photos don’t do it justice. After arriving at the car park bit, you pay £1.40 entrance fee each and walk up a fair few steps to a viewing platform to see the conical hills that when in dry season, devoid of greenery, resemble Hershey’s Kisses chocolates. We thought they looked beautiful and probably better in green. The light was bouncing off them very nicely indeed.

An interesting fact is that it was previously (we’re talking epochs ago) a large coral reef bed, and so is largely composed of shells etc. Then later some weird geographical phenomenon ended up making a load of cone shaped hills. The result is undeniably unique and we were pleased to have witnessed it in all its glory.

Onwards to the Tarsier Sanctuary. This is a very good, ethical organisation – not for profit. They have six tarsiers in a relatively small bit of jungle (think several garden’s worth) that live there and that tourists can see. They also have a separate section of jungle with hundreds of protected tarsiers, who, as a species are endangered due to hunting. Tarsiers are nocturnal and are the 2nd smallest primate. They must hold a grudge against the pygmy marmoset for that, don’t blame ’em. Fun fact, one of their eyes is bigger than their brain. Their eyes are pretty big though!

This type of tarsier (there are 3 types) is endemic to Philippines and can only be found on a few of the islands here, most easily on Bohol. The other types are further south, Malaysia / Indonesia-wards. Each morning, the tour guides go into the mini jungle and try to find the tarsiers, who are out there sleeping. Today they had found 3 of the 6, so that’s what we saw! Adorably cute and much smaller than the pics suggest, they could fit in the palm of your hand easily. It’s hard to imagine them hunting at night, jumping from tree to tree, but they do just that.

At this point, it was about midday and we’d picked out a snazzy lunch spot near our hotel, a good hour away. ‘Fables and Food’ had us at fables, but won us over with their food which was fabulous, some of the best in Bohol. We went back twice more in the next two days!

Day 13 – Organised fun in Bohol

We planned to get up at sunrise to bird the grounds, as they’re fairly extensive and we’d seen multiple blue kingfishers in our day to day. Sadly, sunrise did not wait for us as we slept in a bit. We did go and read on ‘Zen Garden’, which is surrounded by pond, and I saw no less than 3 kingfishers, but not within good photo range. I went on this odd bank between ponds which was exposed to sun and crouched near where I’d spotted them for a gruelling 25 minutes but they stayed away, the buggers. Elusive and flighty! I will try again tomorrow.

Then we decided to spice our Bohol stay with a bit of organised fun which began with a SUP (stand-up paddling) tour. It didn’t really need to be guided but I think they do it to make sure you don’t drown and he can take some pics of you whilst doing so. We basically went up the river for 30 mins, then back down the river for 30 mins. We didn’t get that far, but it was loads of fun. I got quite good at doing fairly big jumps on my board, a couple resulting in hilarious falls into the water.

The guide got us to try and both stand up on the same board which we succeeded in fantastically. There was a french couple with us with a bit less natural balance, but they took their many slips and falls with good grace. One funny moment included them posing for a photo, and the woman slipped and fell in. While she recovered the man also fell. They were both inelegantly lying on their boards, huffing, in failed attempts to get back on. “Take the picture!” He yelled to the guide “We want the truth!”.

Finally we were taken to a palm tree which overhangs the river and we tried climbing up / along it. It was very falically amusing but very painful and hard to do, and we all groaned dramatically as we inched our way along. I eventually got quite far and vaguely managed to stand up on it while falling in. A huge victory to the English contingent.

We loved the SUP and after a lunch decided to get out there for more organised fun. So to the Bohol eco adventure park we went on Scooty! Here were the legendary Bohol zipwires. We honestly had very little idea of what to expect, so we bought some tickets and went up to the launching station. A few minutes later and we’d been tied up in bags so we lay horizontally under the wires, and let loose.

I’m not going to lie, I did not expect to be flying about 200 meters above a river over an enormous valley. I’m also scared of heights. It was pretty great though and the enjoyment superceded the fear. That balance swung the other way as we approached the landing station at absolutely full speed without any sign of slowing down – and we were going FAST. I thought “I’m going so fast and that station is now so close, there is no physical way I can slow down and it not be painful”. Not a great feeling. But I was wrong! Miraculously, it breaks you right as you arrive and it somehow does it without your spine flying through your body independently.

Job done, hearts racing and just laughing at the thrill of it, we were taken straight to the launching pad for the return journey. Slightly more scary actually – not sure why, perhaps because I knew how scary it would be. But we made it and as we headed for the Scooty in the car park, agreed that we had made a good decision to come and raise our heart rates a bit.

Day 14 – Early birding catches the worm

I want to make it clear that this time I didn’t Google where to go birding in Bohol… This time, we’d somewhat run out of exciting adventures to embark on (can you believe it?) and I was browsing Google Maps and came across Raja Sikatuna National Park, which has excellent reviews for guided tours. Most of which mentioned BIRDING tours. So naturally we were up while it was still dark, preparing for an early morning of birding. It was bloody COLD on Scooty. We hadn’t thought that through… It was also a bit surreal; I couldn’t see much more than a few meters in front, it was cold, we were tired and it suddenly became very beautiful as the sun rose.

We met Lando, who would have had us there at 0530 if he had it his way. Having it my way only meant 0545, so basically the same. He hardly said hello as we arrived and had us following him on his scoot to the first birding trail, a few minutes on. It was still dark as he was leading us up the Broadbill Trail. It was this one bird that is near impossible to see after 8am. It is this one bird that almost all birders go to this place to see. He said one Taiwanese photographer went there, took a picture of the Visayan Wattled Broadbill, then went home without continuing or finishing the tour. For me, I had never heard of the Visayan Wattled Broadbill… but obviously was keen to see it! Well, we didn’t. And that’s birding for you folks!

Lando, our awesomely named guide, was somewhat charmless (soz Lando), and the first hour was pretty much birdless, making us wonder why we’d woken up so bloody early to creep around forests in the dark when, even if we did find a Wattled Broadbill, it would be too dark to see it, let alone picture it…

However, things picked up and the 2nd hour was more exciting. The endemic Philippine Trogon, endemic Yellow Breasted Tailorbird and the exotic Frogmouth. We also saw flying lemurs, who are nocturnal so more clutching to trees and sleeping un-photogenically, rather than leaping around for the camera.

We had a great morning, but certainly learnt we’re not 5.30am birders. We’re 8am birders if you’re lucky.

Back in Loboc, we had SUCH a nice wander round town: we stood on the big bridge over the river.

We went into the big colonial church.

And we bought a wonderful fridge magnet. No pic, sorry. We spotted Philippine Eagles, which are all over the place, and retreated back to the resort for the evening.

Bohol has been bloody brilliant, and superb as far as name pun opportunities go. It felt immensely different from Palawan… a bit more like Bali, we thought, but certainly with its own identity. We weren’t as full on as we were in Palawan, but looking back, have achieved so much and saw many things we’ve never seen before.

Next (and final!) stop is Siquijor, God help us find a song name pun for that, and as many of the tricycles say: God bless our trip.

Lastly: whilst going through my camera I found some winning pics from Coron that I never shared. Here they are.

See you next time!