Bohol Part 2 features one of my favorite places in Panglao, the Bohol Bee Farm and the countryside tour: Chocolate Hills, man-made forest, Tarsier Sanctuary, Blood Compact and Loboc river cruise.

Bohol Bee Farm is my retirement goal: not only does it have a bee farm but it also provides affordable accommodation, houses an organic farm and shops (oh, and don’t forget to try the very famous in-house ice cream), but what I love most about this place is they offer a farm tour (every 30 minutes) which will showcase the herb gardens, bee farming and how local crafts are being made.  Note that the tour is free if you have booked an accommodation here.

 

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If you are a budget traveller, you can opt for a garden bungalow which is pretty spacious — it even has a small living area and balcony.  One night for this room costs about P2,632 in Agoda which is already good for 3 persons.  It’s usually fully booked during summer, but, fortunately, there seems to be some cancellations and we were able to get some rooms.

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If you feel like staying in a big native house, I’d recommend the Bohol Room. Type 1 has a balcony with a garden view while Type 2 offers a sea view and also has bathtub.

Countryside Tour

I’ve mentioned in my previous post that there is an advantage when you get to travel in Bohol — the places are relatively compact that you can finish going to the must-see places (countryside tour) in one day.  Our tour was arranged by Amarela Resort, which we very much enjoyed as the driver is very knowledgeable of the places we went to and accommodating to all our needs.

1 van	3500 pesos
capacity	9 persons (excluding driver)
duration	max of 7 hours
charge for every excess hour	P350

Corella Tarsier Sanctuary

It’s sad that tarsier is now part of the World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates by Conservation International.  During my second visit to this sanctuary, I’ve had more awareness and interest to this primate.  They have the tendency to commit suicide when under stress and this could be triggered if touched or when a camera flash is used.  With this, we must be able to fully understand the restrictions of seeing the tarsier — there is no need to get hold of them or draw close to them (just to get a good photo) as they are very sensitive to human proximity.

Man-Made Forest

Our third stop is the man-made forest.  I was still in awe after seeing these dense mahogany trees for the second time, which stretches up to 2 kms along the main road.

Countryside Tour	Entrance Fee in PHP
Corella Tarsier Sanctuary	60
Loboc River Cruise	100
Man-mad Forest	none
Simply Butterfies Conservation Center	50
Chocolate Hills	50
Clarin Ancestral House	20
Baclayon Museum	50
Blood Compact	none

Loboc River Cruise

There were lots of tourists going for Loboc River Cruise the day we went since it fell on a Saturday.  The good thing is our driver is strategic enough so we got a queue number and decided to come back around 3pm and had late buffet lunch while cruising (which is a good timing since we had a long and heavy breakfast buffet at Amarela Resort).