Bohol Review
The trip to Bohol on the 23rd took longer than expected. The Holiday traffic rush had us going a full two hours from Quezon City to the airport. We parked our vehicle at the Park And Fly establishment where one can leave one's car for the duration of the trip, parked safely in a guarded parking lot for about 300 pesos per day.
We were fortunate that the domestic flight via PAL was not delayed at all. The flight took around only an hour, and the usual light manufactured snacks were served. The usual provincial-type airport that looks more like a rectangular one-storey building with four walls and a roof, greeted us on our touchdown.
It was another multi-kilometer ride via van which took another 40 minutes of our time before we got to settle in at our resort, Bohol Beach Club. Funny, there seemed to be less people in Bohol than there was at Palawan when we visited it a summer or two ago. All in all, the time it took from leaving our home to reaching our bed at Bohol was a total of around 6 hours.
It was still a distance from the resort’s perimeter entrance to the resort’s main habitat itself. The road was flat but unpaved, littered with gravel which was supposed to hold together any attempts by Mother Nature to erode it off. My wife was wondering why they didn’t just cement or asphalt the road, we later found out why.
The overall landscaping of the resort was above-average. Not much can be said for the sand, which comes in third to Boracay’s fine sand quality. Palawan beach sands come in second. Haven't been to El Nido, though.
The awe ends right after you open the room. There were the usual corniced corners, television, split type air conditioner, but the paint job and touch-up jobs left much to be desired. Maybe it was just what we deserve for selecting El Cheapo rooms due to last minute booking; you get what you pay for, after all. The showers have strong running hot water which can go warm at the flick of a knob, so it’s not too bad. The worst part was the hotel shampoo, which stiffened up my hair as I was having my bath. A good thing we brought our good old sachets from the supermarket.
Everyone in the resort paid for the same type of buffet meal, so there was no class type distinction there. The meal was definitely computed for foreigner-price level, as it came with a 500 peso price tag. 500 pesos, that translates to only ten of their American dollars, but a bit too steep for fast-food type of meals, dressed up to impress upon the hungry customer that the garnishes were worth the price you're paying.
Even the internet had to be paid for, unlike Boracay, where you could just whip out your laptop and surf to your heart’s content amidst the cool December breeze while sipping coffee. Ahhhh, oh to reminisce.
Now you know why they can’t even afford to pave their roads, eh?
The common area leading to our room was riddled with mosquitoes. It was that bad that when you opened your room’s door, a few mosquitoes were able to enter. With the door closed, we noticed that the gaps around and under the door were big enough even for small mice to enter through!
All the people there were friendly and trustworthy looking, thank God. Another plus at the resort was the Christmas Eve native dance program performed by the resident cultural dancers.
As if to coerce you to partake only of their hotel food, renting a minivan to transport you to the city proper would cost you 1,500 pesos for three hours. There could also be a day tour scheduled, which will cost you three thousand of your hard earned pesos.
We had no choice and had to be stabbed. We needed to see what Bohol offered to the world. Travelling out, we noticed similarities to old Manila. Think Intramuros, experience Bohol. There were scattered bits and pieces of old heritage structures dating back to the 1500s. Historically, this was the time that the Spaniard Conquistadors landed for God Gold and Glory.
Our enterprising tour guide/driver had several side-sights along the way: he had a nearby acquaintance who had and bred tarsiers for pets, he tried to bring us to some pottery making community but they were away on vacation (duh, 24th!). He also kept evading this other floating restaurant that we were supposed to go to, maybe obviously evident that he would be having a commission on the other establishment? The food on this other floating restaurant was half the price of our resorts’. Food quality was also drastically halved. If I described our hotel buffets to be of “Fast-food” quality, the meal on this boat was of “karinderia” type of food. If you’re a foreigner, the word “karinderia” means backyard canteen stops for taxi and jeepney drivers.
All the food we took in thankfully did not do magic with our bowel movements, so all is safe and well! Well, what do you know, our floating boat of a restaurant side tripped to a small clearing on the bayou type lake, which they called “Tarsier Island”. Yet another small family who raised their own tarsiers on a cordoned 10 square meter patch. Definitely not sanctioned by the DENR nor the local government.
I think they should just stop with the “endangered species” approach, and go on with the “help propagate the tarsiers” approach, and let everyone have and keep and breed them for pets. (I researched on this thought, and found out it was a bad idea, since tarsiers in captivity suffer stress, and bang their heads on the cages, or hang themselves)
The trip was completed at the airport. While waiting for the flight home, there were some blind masseurs to knead out your nodules at a cheap price!
*pictures courtesy of this site
I also stayed in Bohol beach club when we had our convention a couple of years ago. It also had a lot of mosquitos then but we had better experience because we had a good tour guide. The river ride w/ restaurant was also fun coz of the show where young boys (paid i think) jump from a coconut tree and into the river.