2 Day Bohol Trip : A quick escape

We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us

– Anonymous

This is the first post on my first blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

For my birthday this year, my husband and I decided to go to Bohol. Last year, we planned to go to Puerto Princesa, Palawan, but it was cancelled due to his ACL knee operation (He was injured while playing basketball for our then-company’s sportfest). We were not able to travel for more than a year, so I was looking forward to this trip very much.

This is not really a budget trip since we felt that we were deprived of not being able to travel for a long time, and also because it was my birthday weekend. Don’t be dispirited if you want to go to Panglao on a budget, it is VERY possible to customize a cheaper Bohol trip, maybe we’ll do this next time 🙂 .

Since we will just be 2 days in Bohol, and I’ve heard that it may be difficult to get a taxi or other public transportation of off-peak hours, to make the most of the trip, I booked a tour with Bohol Beach Club (the hotel where we will be staying). I booked their Countryside Organized Tour, since what I really wanted to see are just the tarsiers and the Chocolate Hills. After all, these are Bohol’s trademarks.

The BBC Organized Tour, as opposed with the Ordinary Tour, includes lunch in the floating river, all entrance fees, a private car, and a tour guide. I also called BBC so that we can proceed with the tour once we land, and they happily obliged and sent the driver and the tour guide to fetch us.

First, our tour brought us to the blood compact shrine. It is actually just this (see picture above), just statues posed for a blood compact. The “I LOVE TAGBILARAN” giant sign is also in that area. Nothing much to do here other than take pictures but I still appreciate that they created a landmark for an important milestone in our history. You can also see that a park is being created below, and this statue will be transferred there once done so that it will not only be a pit-stop, possibly a picnic area(?) in the future.

Next we went to the Baclayon Church. Our tour guide passed us on another local tour guide (she is a teenager which has surprising knowledge of the history of the Baclayon Church, probably she underwent training for this). It is not allowed to take pictures inside the museum, but you can take a picture at this spot (like a balcony, see picture above), which is good enough for me.

• 

Also included in the tour is a lunch buffet at floating boats in Loboc River. Our tour guide was the one to buy tickets for us which is a good thing because we arrived around 11:30PM and the line is already long. It seems that travel agencies and tours reserve tickets before hand once tourist attendance is booked with them so we didn’t need to wait long, just around 15mins. If you want to try this, I recommend reading how to reserve/buy tickets before your trip. The food was great, there were a lot of varieties for viands and desserts. There were also iced tea and cucumber lemonade during our lunch. The softdrinks were not included in the buffet price, though, and the waiter will ask you to pay after your meal, if you ordered one.

The cruise air was refreshing and the entertainment (an acoustic singer with a voice like an angel) was great. Loboc is not only known for this river but also for their children’s choir. Our tour guide informed us that sometimes, they, the non-singing part of the population, are embarassed to admin that they cannot sing, as the Loboc people are known for their singing.

It was good that we decided to have lunch first before heading to Chocolate Hills as we needed to climb a series of stairs to be able to get a good shot of the hills. I felt like I burned my buffet meal in that climb. I was sweaty on this picture. Fortunately, it was not that obvious. Anyway, it was worth it. There are some angles though where the hills are not visible so you may need to wait until other tourists are done to use the good spots.

The last stop of the tour is the man made forest. These were planted by boy scouts and girl scouts to fight landslides in this area (if I remembered correctly). It is great to be reminded what the youth can accomplish if they work together.

• 

After our tour ended, we were dropped-off at the Bohol Beach Club. We rested a bit before dinner.

The bed in our room was HUGE. It could fit 4 people and still there is room. I was hoping that there will be a tub (although I knew from Agoda that there wasn’t one for our room type), still, I hoped, haha. The room amenities were modern and the mini bar was packed (although I did not get any thing from that).

So why did we chose Bohol Beach Club? (Note that this is a not a paid blog). As usual, the way I choose a hotel or an AirBnb is based on 1) Budget, 2) Location, 3) Reviews. For budget, we decided that we can splurge a little on a mid to high type of resort since we are celebrating my birthday. My requirement for location is just that it should have a beach front and reading the reviews, everything seems to be well. There are some other hotels which fit our criteria (mostly those beside BBC, on the same beach) but the others no longer have vacant deluxe rooms.

Dinner was great. There was buffet option but I think the theme for that night was barbecue night, so we decided to just order ala carte. We also decided to exchange our free drink coupon during this time (the free welcome drink is some sort of a lemonade. It was good but the glass was very small). One thing I noted was that the service was impeccable. The waiters were very friendly and the manager always approach us and ask if we need anything else. I’ve heard that Bohol’s main industry is tourism, so I wondered if their universities focus on hospitality management courses. There was also a cultural show which I think was made for foreigners’ checked-in in BBC.

• 

The next day, we decided to just lounge in the beach. Panglao has a great beach and since the resort is more private than the others, there were very few people in the beach front so we enjoyed the privacy.

• 

We also explored the BBC grounds and there were so many instagrammable locations. In their map, there was a biking trail so I asked if we can borrow a bike. Unfortunately, they said that the map was old and there were no more bike that we can borrow, so we just walked around the area.

• 

There was a complimentary 20-minute glass boat tour included in our accommodation. This starts very early and then stops around lunchtime and then continues again after lunch. We decided to get ours around 1PM, after we took our lunch. There was no other people yet in line, so it seemed like we had our private tour. The glass boat will bring you a little farther in the sea (but not so far as island hopping tours) and view the corals and fishes through the glass floor of the boat. Unfortunately, I thought I was over my phobia of boats and the deep sea but I was not. So around 10minutes through, I begged kuya boat driver to go back. It was a good experience though. I was happy to know that the corals in Panglao are still intact and still brimming with acquatic life.

• 

For our last night in Panglao, we decided to lounge by the pool. We also ordered our dinner there (just a pizza, pica-pica and some cocktails). The pool was big enough (especially since there were a very few people at that time) and the pool side was well-maintained. We can here the bands playing at the restaurant so we had a nice background music.

All in all, I enjoyed this trip a lot. My husband possibly enjoyed it too but since he was the one to pay for it, it probably reduced his enjoyment to half :). I included the cost of this trip but as I have mentioned, this is already splurging on our part. You can create a Panglao itinerary with more than half this budget.

• Air Asia Flight RoundTrip for 2 people (MNL to Panglao (don’t be alarmed if your ticket still says Tagbilaran airport, ours did and we still disembark in the new Panglao Airport) – P6,957.31
• Bohol Beach Club (BBC) Deluxe Room Accommodation 3days, 2 nights – P17,622.86 (booked through Agoda)
• BBC Organized Tour (private tour with lunch in floating river in Loboc, inclusive of all entrance fees) – P5,900 (P2950 per person x2)
• Food and Beverages (1 lunch, 2 dinner, 1 miryenda, all were inside BBC) – ±3,000

This is my first post on my first blog and I wanted to share this experience with all of you. I hope you enjoyed reading 🙂