We arrived in Bohol by ferry, as one would expect of an island, and immediately made our way to the town of Loboc. There was a wonderfully reviewed hotel in my Lonely Planet book for South East Asia (aka the Bible) called Nuts Huts and we decided that a jungle lodge in a remote town by a river sounded quite nice!
We were right.
This was the view from the hotel balcony.
The river, also called the Loboc River, was green and cloudy and a very pleasant temperature for swimming. On our first day in Loboc, we decided to have a day of rest, having spent the previous week rushing around the Philippines trying to see everything that was humanly possible (I know, it's a hard life). But really, travelling every other day is exhausting and we all needed a day off to chill out and just soak up the view.
So into the river we got! While we swam, big sailing restaurants rumbled by, blaring 80s classics and generally ruining the jungle ambience; Chinese tourists ate their lunch on board the vessels and took photos of the exotic scenery i.e. the four Western girls in bikinis, swimming in the river they were sailing down. It was quite odd to be looked upon with as much fascination and interest as the beautiful landscape around us and I genuinely think very few of them had seen Westerners before. It didn't feel creepy for them to take pictures of us, despite our attire (we were mostly submerged in murky water anyway) but more like they found us 'foreigners' genuinely intriguing and we were as worthy of photographing ("look at these strange people we saw on our trip to Bohol") as the green river and lush jungle.
Nuts Huts had a couple of kayaks for hire so Kim and I took them out for a spin, while Vita and Emma swam alongside. We headed upstream to a couple of small waterfalls and while the current was not strong at all, I definitely realised my upper strength is somewhat lacking!
The town of Loboc itself was about 3km away from Nuts Huts so late that afternoon we decided to walk in, to see what Friday night had in store. Very little it turned out.
Don't get me wrong, we found a place that had a happy hour (a bottle of local lager for 40 pisos; so to you and I, 57p) so we set up camp there, but it was certainly not a partying atmosphere! Mind you, we've been going to bed by 10.30-11 every night so perhaps the party started as we getting into our PJs...
It was very pretty though.
The next day we hired two motorbikes (with drivers, before you panic) and we set off, three astride each bike, to see the island of Bohol and its most famous sight: the Chocolate Hills. These are essentially 1200 (more or less) identical, slightly conical hills clustered in the centre of the island. The geological theory is something to do with the uplift of coral deposits or something equally unexciting, but personally I like the local theory better: Filipino folklore has it that the hills were formed from the shed tears of a heartbroken giant. Much more believable in my opinion.
Because rainy season had just ended in the Philippines, the hills were quite green and lush. However, apparently for a lot of the year, the grass is dead and brown, hence their chocolatey name.
That afternoon, we were taken on a bike tour of the rest of Bohol. We drove past some rice paddy terraces which were just beautiful.
Overall it was a very pretty place, lots of little villages with quaint churches (the Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country) but I have to admit, my memory lingers less on the stunning views and more on the discomfort that is experienced when sitting on a motorbike for an entire day with two other people. I think I'll have phantom bruises on my bum for years to come when I think back to Bohol.
No comments:
Post a Comment