Bohol

Day 273 – Nuts Huts

This morning we finally posted some postcards that we had been hanging onto for weeks, months even! Very slack. We finally accepted a lift back to the airport from one of the four or five trike drivers that hung out at the hotel entrance asking us if we needed a trike every time we left the building. The guy turned out to be super friendly and had hand written business cards that he gave us so that we could call him next time we were in Puerto Princesa!

Our flight left early, as expected, and the flight hostess proudly announced that we had touched down in Cebu 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We are beginning to think this is a ploy to improve the airlines’ terrible on time record. We got a taxi straight to the docks and were on a ferry without having to wait very long.

I decided to wait until the ferry had pulled out of the dock before telling Erin that ferries were the worst possible form of transport available in the Philippines and that the Australian Government recommend only taking them if its the only option! A ferry holding 5,000 passengers recently sank with no survivors. Scary!

Coming out of the ferry terminal in Tagbilaran we tried to negotiate a ride to the bus terminal, but ended up getting a ride the whole way to our destination instead. Nuts Huts are a collection of wooden cabins strung along the Loboc River in the mountainous jungle interior of Bohol Island. The trike dropped us at the end of the entrance road, 700m long and basically just a rough bush track, we were beginning to wonder if we were lost when we finally got to the entrance. From there hundreds of stairs lead down toward the river, with a beautiful open air restaurant / relaxing area halfway down.

The top set of stairs, the bottom set was just as long. Aside from improving our stair climbing fitness, it also made sure we were sharp in the morning, forgetting something and having to go back to our hut to get it was a major downer!

Out Nuts Hut.

From the restaurant you could look out over the river and the jungle. The sunsets each night were beautiful and when the sun went down the tree just off the balcony was a meeting place for fireflies. Plus they had a good collection of old National Geographic magazines that kept me entertained for hours on end!

Day 274 – Tiny Ewoks

This morning we set out for the Tarsier Sanctuary. These strange creatures are the worlds smallest primates, they are only about 10cm tall but their eyes are massive, 150 times larger than human eyes proportionally speaking. Their closest living relatives are lemurs, but in many ways they resemble tiny monkeys, or my Mum thought perhaps little Ewoks.

To get to the sanctuary we finally used one of the Philippines’ many Jeepneys, basically stretched jeeps with bench seating in the back. They are cheap and they go practically everywhere, many are ornately decorated, but they can get crowded and hot.

When we got to the sanctuary we were pleased to discover that there were only a few other people there. It seems that as the sanctuary only allows a couple of people into the tarsier viewing area at a time the place has stayed off the organised tour route, at least for big groups anyway. There are however many places elsewhere in Bohol with caged tarsiers for tourist viewing. This in combination with capture for the pet trade, deforestation and predation by domestic and feral animals have left the wild tarsier population threatened. To make matters worse caged and pet tarsiers generally die quickly in captivity as their keepers are not able to feed them the live insects they need.

The sanctuary is interesting because although the tarsiers are in a fenced enclosure they are essentially wild. Because they can jump further than their major predators they can clear the fences at night to go out and hunt, then return to the enclosure during the day to sleep and be peered at by curious tourists.

As each tarsier has its own bit of turf in the enclosure the guides generally know where to find them. So once we had waited for the two people in front of us to leave the enclosure (which is a couple of hectares in size) our guide ushered us through the gate and right up to where one of the little critters was sleeping. They were surprising nonplussed about people and just sat in their tree wide eyed while we stood similarly wide-eyed checking them out.

Tarsiers’ eyes are fixed in their skull, so they can pivot their head 180 degrees in either direction like an owl, this just adds to how strange they look.

I tried to get a photo of Erin with one, but this was difficult because they are so tiny and you’re not allowed to get too close. If you look really carefully there is a tarsier about a third of the way up from the bottom of the photo at the far left hand side.

After the tarsier sanctuary we headed back to Nuts Huts and spent the afternoon exploring the surrounds. We swam across the river to the walking path on the other side and walked up through a little village and on to a small waterfall. As we passed through the village most of the people were out on a covered platform in the river, playing guitar and singing. The waterfall wasn’t anything special, but we enjoyed our swim back downstream to Nuts Huts.

Big spider near the waterfall (which we never properly saw).

Day 275 – They’re nice but you can’t eat them

Today’s primary objective was to visit the Chocolate Hills. Along with the tarsiers the Bohol Tourist Board heavily plugs the Chocolate Hills, a collection of oddly shaped hills which turn brown in the dry season, supposedly resembling chocolate drops.

Getting off the bus we had to convince several motorcycle drivers that we were quite content walking the last 15 minutes up to the view point.

There were hundreds of tourists at the viewing point, mostly Filipinos, so I guess all the advertising is working.

In dry season they look more chocolatey apparently.

Rainstorm coming in over the ‘Chocolate Hills Complex’, basically a ring of souvenir shops built on a saddle between two of the hills.

For lunch we headed to the Butterfly Sanctuary in Bilar. After a nice meal looking out over the gardens we were given a tour around the gardens by an enthusiastic young guide.

Special freaky half female, half male butterflies in a display case at the restaurant.

Our final stop for the day was to Logarita Pool, a man made pool fed by a natural spring on the edge of the rice paddies. Our tricycle driver dropped us there (at the end of a road several kilometres out of town) and then disappeared, leaving us wondering if we’d have to walk back to the highway. Instead when it was time to leave we paid for a ride with a local guy on his motorcycle, a bit scary!

One of the locals helped me wet the ‘water slide’, the steep concrete chute you can see at the back left of the photo, so we could have a couple of goes. It was pretty vicious on the behind!

Day 276 – Waiting for the bus

As we got to the end of the Nuts Huts access track it started pouring down, so we scurried into the little shelter by the side of the road where a few of the locals were already sitting out the rain. We were busy chatting to the locals and trying to stay dry, so when the first bus drove past we didn’t have time to get out and signal it. An hour later the rain had finally eased and we made in onto the next bus.

The local kids constructing what I guess you’d call mud bombs. They all jumped out of the trees as we walked the bush path to Nuts Huts yelling “Bomb! Bomb!”

Our plan had been to go to the mall in Tagbilaran (the main town on Bohol) to get some cash and burn DVDs before heading out to Panglao Island to have lunch at an organic farm, the Bohol Bee Farm. But with having missed the bus we were a little behind schedule for lunch and there turned out to be a coffee shop of the Bohol Bee Farm at the mall, so we ate there instead.

By the time we had eaten lunch, looked around the shops, burned DVDs and posted them it was time to get the bus back to Nuts Huts before it got dark, not much of a day in the end but at least we finally got a couple of months worth of photos backed up.

Day 277 - Hung

After extensive research yesterday while the DVDs were burning I’d decided that it was going to be extremely difficult to get from Bohol to Siargao by ferry, and pretty hard to justify given the cheap airfares on offer. So instead of a couple of days getting on and off ferries we opted for a couple of days at the touristy beach resort of Alona.

So after dropping back through the mall to book some flights we got a trike out to Alona and wandered around until we found a nice place to stay. Back from the beach but with a nice pool and friendly staff, plus a hefty off season discount, we opted for the strangely named Mondsee Land Resort. As we went to check in we realised that we had left our document pouches (including passports) in the safe back at Nuts Hut, doh!

We decided to worry about that tomorrow and instead headed out for dinner before returning home to listen to Radio Australia and the Australian Federal Election call. By the time we went to bed at well after midnight Australian time the result was clear, hung.

Day 278 – Retrieval exercise

My job for the day was to retrieve our passports etc. Not thrilled with the idea of getting all the way there and back again by public transport (an all day exercise more or less) I wandered down the street and finally took up an offer to hire a motorcycle (after being pestered for weeks!). Weeks as a passenger had given me rough idea of the road ‘rules’ and I didn’t have to ride through any big cities, so the trip wasn’t too intimidating, and only took me about 3 hours in the end.

Mid afternoon we headed down to the beach to a restaurant serving meat pies, yum (for me anyway, Erin opted for a pizza). The rest of the day we spent lazing around the pool, life’s tough sometimes.