We found a DIY itenerary online detailing how to get around Bohol on public transport, without using a tour, which we were excited about – most of the tours were at least 1500 pesos (~$32) per person without including entrance fees for the sites we wanted to see, which is more than we wanted to spend. So we went to the mall (of course, everything happens at the mall here) to catch a jeepney (a small bus of sorts that carries around 20 people) to the first site on our itenerary. We met another couple on the jeepney (a Filipino girl and American guy) who spoke the language and were conveniently going to many of the same sites as us which made the transport much easier for us 🙂 They were kind of shy and didn’t talk much but they were our silent friends for the day.
At the Tarsier sanctuary, we saw a few Tarsiers which are tiny little nocturnal mammals that can turn their heads around 360 degrees. They apparently can’t handle stress and are known to commit suicide when they are over stressed! While a ton of people go to this sanctuary and get close to the animals, we wanted to check out the tarsiers and support one of the few Philippine attempts to preserve wildlife, so  we went and tried to stay out of their space the best we could. The sanctuary was pretty small, but was a nice walk around, and they do try to keep people quiet. And the tarsiers are so cute!

  
   
   
Next we took a pretty bus ride (on a kind of crappy bus with no windows) past lots of rice paddies through the countryside to our next destination.
   

Loboc has a nice river, and the locals came up with a way to get their cut of the tourist dollar – they offer river cruises on barges of sorts with a buffet lunch and singers. It was pretty cheesy, but not too much, and it was reasonably priced – we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and had a reasonably good lunch (with unlimited iced tea!) on the river cruise.  

  
  
  
  
At the midpoint of the ride, we came up to a barge full of people playing ukuleles and singing songs for us.

  
After the river cruise, we headed toward the bus to to go our next destination, and saw orchids growing on some palm trees!

  
  
Then we flagged down a bus and headed for the Chocolate hills. On the way there we saw lots of people getting out at the Mahogany forest, a forest full of thousands of mahogany trees that were hand planted. Apparently a forest of trees planted by hand is a really weird thing in the Philippines as it was definitely a tourist attraction. We didn’t get out for it, because we are spoiled by our amazing forests in Washington which made this seem not that special to us, but it was interesting to see people getting excited over it. 

We got off the bus at the road to the Chocolate hills, an area with lots of hills that seem to pop out of nowhere, apparently made by mounds of coral when the island was previously in the sea long ago (I think). They are grassy but frequently brown in the summer due to lack of rain, I suppose the person who first found them thought the they look like chocolate. 

  
  
We got overwhelmed pretty quickly with the number of tourists around – lots of people bus out to the Chocolate hills on tours, and there is a main lookout point to climb up that is pretty small for the number of people visiting – I had to wait in line for Thom to take this picture of me! So we headed back to the bus and rode the 2 hours back to Tagbilaran city where we were staying. Overall we had a lovely day exploring Bohol! Until we got back to the hotel and the water was not working and the hotel had no back up water supply so we couldn’t really take a proper shower. But whatever, we found a pool next door and ended up swimming and showering in the outdoor pool shower so it all worked out ok.

The next day we headed to nearby Panglao island, and went to the Bee Farm. We heard this place had an amazing salad, which I was pretty excited for since lettuce is virtually nonexistent here. 

  
The salad really was amazing, and came with edible flowers on it!

  
Also had a delicious fish taco with a cassava shell, fresh lumpia, bread, some homemade spreads, as well as a ginger-mango shake for me and a banana shake for Thom – Thom’s favorite!

  
  
They had a lovely view from the restaurant.

  
And amazing ice cream that we ate before we could take a picture. Thom had ice cream made with horseradish leaves, and I had a double scoop with salted honey and ube ice cream in a cassava cone – by far the best ice cream we have had so far. Most of the ice cream in the Philippines is crap, but this was really good!

After hanging out at the bee farm for awhile, we went down to Alona beach. We heard it was a pretty nice beach but we were not that impressed.

  
  
The beach was pretty small, the water pretty sandy and lots of boats everywhere. We just hung out here for a little while then caught a ride back to Tagbilaran city for our last night before starting the trek to Palawan island.