I went to Bohol not knowing what to expect – or rather, expecting the usual bucolic vistas with typically provincial offerings and dispirited "tourist attractions." My previous acquaintance with the place was schoolboy knowledge/weekend diver-limited: site of the Sikatuna-Legaspi blood compact, home of President Garcia, Jesuit stronghold in Spanish times, consistently voted one of the 10 most spectacular scuba dive sites in the world…There‘s all that, and much more in Bohol. Discovery being such a pleasant surprise for me, should you decide to go, I’m throwing in my unsolicited two cents worth of advice.
Asian Spirit has regular Manila flights to Tagbilaran. For this trip I took a flight to Cebu and caught the SuperCat to Tagbilaran, saving over a thousand pesos and sparing myself a two-hour turboprop plane ride. The money I saved doing this I blew on a night out in Cebu. Bohol is served by the SuperCat and OceanJet lines. Ferrying only people, the boats are clean and fast, keeping well within a fixed and fairly reliable schedule. Food is served and cooked on board, which can be quite yucky in the carpeted, air-conditioned interiors. But everything on the ferry was just hunky dory, the only scary moment coming during the onboard prayer.
During my stay, I was billeted at the Bohol Tropics Hotel on Graham Avenue. Using the hotel as base, I set out on daily forays around the province. The island is small enough to allow this. Bohol has its share of stone churches remarkable for there having porte-cock (Bohol is just north of Mindanao which the Spanish never conquered, but that’s another story). Though none are architecturally outstanding or historically remarkable, these fortress-like structures make for pride and wonder at those who came before. The one at Baclayon, started in 1596, is the oldest stone church in the country. Attached to it is an ecclesiastical museum that also serves as the parish office. Pretending to be a pilgrim, I climbed the steps behind the main altar to get a closer look at the image of the virgin. Popular belief holds that this was a gift from Catherine of Aragon. Whatever it was, up I went with the other dutiful devotees and got a close look at the woodwork and the saints’ hands and faces.
The rainforests at Lobok and Corella are must-sees; they serve as natural shelters for the world’s smallest primate. Here, the endangered tarsiers are given sanctuary, a haven where they can be stared at and petted, not unlike in a circus. It is a good thing to know these creatures are assured unmolested refuge within this immense enclosure. They are then free to reproduce in an atmosphere approximating nature, guaranteeing us years of undiluted tarsier-watching pleasure. Virtual reality is the order of the day. Which could be either happy or sad, depending on how you prefer to see things.
Dauis on Panglao Island has an interesting church. Set amid a small picturesque park looking across the channel to Bohol, it presents a startling visual hurrah! One moment you are in the cavey coolness of the church, nostrils full of bat smells. Step out a side door and there you are, looking out on an expanse of lawn, young boys playing soccer, pre-war acacias framing Tagbilaran across the strait. Town Hall on one side, Spanish convento given new life as a police outpost on the other join to complete pleasing proportions framing the sea beyond the green. The interior of the church itself is distinct for the Visayas: wooden seraphim taking wing off capitals, painted walls and ceilings done on tin or some alloy, badly in need of restoration. I was here midmorning when kalachuchi is most agreeably nauseating. Try to be here late in the afternoon, on your way back from a day trip to Panglao.
Some way into the hills of Dauis squats the Bohol Plaza. While it offers a scenic view (overlooking the airport from an unrecognizable distance as it does), it just didn’t seem like anything was going on up there. What it has is a pretty lobby and wonderfully immense restrooms: grab a partner and do the tango in there. If my key words were "alone" and "undisturbed," you’d find me here. This is were the action is not; you could write a book or study for those qualifying exams during your stay. The consideration of access and relative inaction of the place is more than adequately compensated by the solicitude of the staff and ridiculously cheap coffee and sodas. Great seclusion.
Also in the island is Hinagdanan cave. This is a can-miss: it is small and claustrophobic, the lighting classic third-world backwater. Outside, one finds the usual tourists traps with their cheesy overpriced wares plus a heartbreakingly well-stocked shell and coral shop. Give this one a detour. Plan on spending more time at the Bohol Beach Club instead. Hire a taxi to take you there; just say "BBC," the cabbie will know what you mean. And, unless, you’re checking in, don’t forget to make him wait!
The resort is beautiful and isolated, that rarefied isolation that comes with exclusivity and privilege; the only hotel guests I saw belonged to that world-wide club of travelers, the same people on African safaris and Norwegian cruises: the newlyweds and the nearly-deads.
Between the reception and restaurant area to the guests – only pool is a walk through a mahogany forest that makes for good photo ops. If you haven’t popped the big question yet, this is a good place to propose. At the end of this walk are more cottages and the (new) pool. In spite of its being typically chaise-longue and canvas-umbrella, bridge-over-lagoon, the BBC pool nonetheless retains charm and manages to look quite chic. I don’t know why so, but it does. The kitchen offerings were mediocre at best, but the fruits were probably grown on the premises, they were all perfectly ripe. More coke and coffee for less than P50 here. If expense is a factor, opt for the public beach donated by the Bohol Beach Club next to their property: free picnic thatches, the same powdery white sand, more people (all 12 of them when I was there last), all sharing that inimitable Pinoy camaraderie, the place maintaining an indefinable feeling of isolation.
Getting on the ferry at Cebu, I was amazed at the number of foreigners aboard. They got off at Tagbilaran when I did, but I didn’t seem to run into any of them in town. Apparently, they were all headed for the place the locals call Alona, which is a misnomer.
Alona is merely the first hotel one encounters on the way to the water’s edge. The beach there is spectacular, no other word for it. And, unlike some other place I choose not to mention, there is no greenish band of algae a foot into the water. "Laid back" is the operative phrase here, with none of the self conscious determination to have fun one comes across in other tourist-oriented islands. This savoir-faire is infectious; you’ll start to feel the same within a few hours of arrival. Fine white sand, intense sunlight, plenty of dive shops, hotel rooms for almost any budget. If there’s one place in the Philippines you have to visit, make it this one. Don’t forget the laughably cheap Coke and coffee. Hahaha!
Back at the Bohol Tropics every evening, I wasted time at the hotel café; it overlooks the Tagbilaran pier and has an encompassing view of the resort and Panglao Island in the distance. I joined the waiters counting time, noting the arrival of each ship and passenger ferry, enjoying a P20 Coke or a P30 coffee, not having to ask if I was having fun yet. Early mornings here or any available free time can be spent exploring the gardens of the hotel, watching the Japanese and Koreans taking their intro dives in one of the hotel’s three pools. Free Internet service also helped me do some work during the trip. And any inadequacy on the part of the hotel, real or imagined, was more than made up for by the smiles, smiles, smiles of the staff.
Visit Bohol, there’s more to it than described here. This is the homeland of Francisco Dagohoy, leader of the longest and most effective uprising against the Spanish. Here are charming towns full of old houses, where you can go diving cheaper than anywhere else in the Philippines and violent crime is nearly non-existent. A province served by a single taxi company manned by honest, affable cabdrivers. An island with genuine Filipino warmth. This is what Philippines used to be. This is what Philippines should be.