Skip Trips turns travel into tales

More than the sightseeing, the Island Skip Trip day-tour package to Bohol is about story telling. The tour includes stops to churches, lunch while on a river boat cruise and climbing the Chocolate Hills – or more specifically, climbing the stairs to view the Chocolate Hills from afar. More than capturing the moment in pictures, this thing about going on tours really finds its ultimate fun when the traveler can relate his experience or make up tales about the experience.

The Skip Trip package has been so designed such that once you are seated on the coach, the mood provokes your mind to weave a story even without thinking about a plot. The tour package starts with lunch at the Loboc river cruise but even as the tour guide chatters her way to keep her guests awake, the mind drools into something else. Could that placid sea keep a serpent underneath, could those boulders have been catapulted from a big tsunami, what sort of Boholanos lived in the 1500s that they were strong enough to carry blocks of stone to build churches.

Imagination of guests though was not to be clouded over by that of the tour guide when she related how local yams or “ube” are to be planted only by women who had big breasts. Others who could not stand indecent talk cringed. But isn’t that what tales are made of?

River cruise, river ruse.

The river cruise was another tale-spinning scenario as groups of adult and children sang alongside the river. That singing was different from the guy who sang onboard the boat. The serenading while on a cruise found many excited but when it comes to spinning tales, images run wilder. It is not difficult to imagine seeing crocodiles surrounding the fragile boat with gaping jaws or elves prancing among the heavy shrubbery along the river.

For the Bohemian in spirit, the boats of Loboc instill some sense of fear because these are built on two motor bancas tied together. Authorities don’t regulate it for trim and stability nor are certificates or license needed for those who navigate it. If the boats turn over – capsize, to put it in maritime terms—that skipper won’t be accountable. Worse is that passengers are not required to don lifejackets throughout the 45-minute cruise. Of the so many trips here through the years, there appears to have been no accident.

Then came the stopover at Chocolate Hills, so named because the chocolate-looking hills might have been formed by some volcanic, geological activity. Tourists are able to get a spectacle of the chocolate-looking hills from a viewing deck that can be reached by climbing at least 200 steps leading to the platform. It does fill one with exhilaration how God’s amazing hand allowed such geological destruction to take place only to transform it into natural beauties. Must beauty be so destructive?

Maybe, but for the enterprising photographers at the chocolate hills, nothing beats how they transform faces into jumping jack models. There are photographers at the platform complete with a computer, Photoshop software and a printer. Photos are taken at P100 per copy. If the spectacle of the Chocolate Hills is impressive so have the ingenuity of these enterprising photographers.

At the Baclayon church, we were told that the belfry doubled as watch tower so that it was easy to warn people to run to safety when marauders invaded. There was an old music sheet but for those with imagination for tales, they could hear strains coming from an organ.

The guide told us that we had missed stopovers to the Butterfly Sanctuary in Bilar, a python farm in Albur, the hanging bridge in Sevilla and a visit to Panglao. Uncannily that’s exactly where the tales begin. When people are told places they are suppose to be seeing but weren’t, imagination takes over and tales weave into motion.