Bohol Island, The Philippines

Panglao Island is a small island off the south end of Bohol Island and other than the white sand beach at Alona Beach (which attracts the divers) there is not much to see other than the daily island life. The islanders grow the usual bananas (lots of kinds- from tiny yellow finger ones to big white flat ones that are fried or grilled over charcoal), coconuts, sweetcorn, sweet potato (campote),long beans, and raise pigs, cows, chickens and roosters for fighting.

We met a couple of guys, George and Paul from Holland, who were on a 12 day holiday in The Philippines and we got together and hired a van and driver to visit the sights of Bohol.

There are some hills made from coral that brown off in the summer and because of this they get their name "The Chocolate Hills". They were formed millions of years ago and the soft sand was eroded away to leave the hard coral shapes.

The Philippines has a small animal called the tarsier and it is so cute. It is a nocturnal creature related to the sloth family and its eyes are larger than its brain.We were able to see some in a caged area along with sleeping fruit bats and flying lemurs who were also asleep.

tarsier

Flying lemur
Fat fruit bats

The oldest church in the The Philippines was in need of a lot of funds to prevent it decaying any further. It was founded in 1400s by the Spanish priests and had an ornate wood carved inside.

We came to this part of The Philippines to rest up and we did not want to be looking for accommodation or transport at such a busy time of the year. Rest we did! Our lodge had a kitchen and we were pleased to be able to cook food and not have to eat out 3 times a day. We read the 8 books we were carrying and watched HBO movies on TV. It rained often but at least it was warm and at happy hour time we were able to meet up with many other travellers from interesting places including a guy called Espen from Spitzbergen.

Happy hour
From Bohol we took a fast ferry back to Cebu and spent a night there before catching a night ferry to Manila (22hours). Most people were returning to jobs and study the next day so the ferry was fully booked.
Mens' urinal Manila

We have a night here in Clark, just outside Manila, and will take a fight to Kota Kinabula, Malaysia tomorrow and have a change from Catholicism to Islam.