Christian and I put a lot of time and energy into researching the places we want to visit. Despite our best efforts, I knew that at some point a destination wouldn’t live up to our expectations. Eight months into our travels, I can now tell you that place was Bohol. Bohol is an island in the Philippines and it was… fine. We didn’t hate it, we didn’t love it. I would definitely do it differently if we had the opportunity for a mulligan (and Christian doesn’t think I pay attention when he talks about golf… ha, showed him).
I feel like Bohol reads well on paper… cruise the Loboc River, visit the Chocolate Hills, say hello to one of the smallest primates on the planet, admire the fireflies at night… sounds really cool, right? We thought so too, that’s why we went. Well… have you seen some of the viral flops on the news recently like the Willy Wonka Experience in Glasgow or the Bridgerton Ball scam in Detroit? If those don’t ring a bell, what about the Fyre Festival in the Bahamas? Okay, it hardly feels fair to compare Bohol to Fyre Festival, but you get my point… there is a substantial discrepancy between what was expected and what was delivered. Personally, I found Bohol to be rather underwhelming.
The river was nice, but it wasn’t the tranquil setting I thought it would be. I’m pretty sure the number of roosters on the island exceeds the number of people, and they all happened to live just on the other side of the river from where we were staying. And if you weren’t aware, roosters don’t just crow in the morning, they crow all f***ing day. That said, I think I’d take the roosters over the local karaoke happening just around the river bend. The Chocolate Hills are really bizarre and cool to look at, but the line to viewpoint reminded me of the lines I’ve seen online of people waiting to summit Everest. Waiting in a long line to get that perfect, Instagram-worthy shot just isn’t really my thing. Going to the Tarsier Sanctuary was… something. I genuinely don’t know how to describe it. The tiny primates are pretty cute, but I found the sanctuary itself to be… kind of sad? We watched a 5 minute video telling us apparently all there is to know about the small primates and how to behave walking through their habitat, then we saw a few sleeping in the trees, then we left. It’s not like I expected to pet a Tarsier, that’s definitely not what I’m saying. It’s just that walking from the decrepit building, through the chain link fence, to walk on a trail for maybe 5 minutes before being ushered out was… well… a little sad and underwhelming. If anything, I just felt bad I may have intruded on some much needed shuteye for the Tarsiers. And then the fireflies… If you’re imagining some almost Disney-like spectacle with just thousands of fireflies lighting up the jungle on both sides of the river, well then I hope you get lucky and you’re there during the very small window when that may happen. Otherwise, you’ll see some fireflies floating around a few trees (they are very particular, these fireflies, and only like certain trees along the river).
So would I recommend visiting Bohol? Maybe. I know I just spent a paragraph somewhat bashing the island, but my experience there overall wasn’t bad… it just needed improvement. If I could do it all over again, I’d still go to Bohol, I’d just plan the trip a little differently. Mainly, I’d spend less time there. We stayed at the Loboc River Resort, which was a lovely hotel, for 4 nights. And honestly, we really only needed 2. We typically avoid really short stays when we travel. It’s hard to really get a feel for a place when you only have 1 full day there. But in this case, 1 full day would have been enough. I would have done the firefly cruise on night one, then I would have explored the island on day two, maybe kayak/paddle the Loboc River that same day, and then on day three… I’d leave. The food at the resort was fine. Sticking with the general theme of Bohol, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great either. And two nights eating the resort food would have been plenty. By the 4th night, I would have killed for something different… anything different. We went into Loboc proper that afternoon hoping for some different food, but it happened to be a Sunday and nothing was open except a little fast food chain selling the saddest looking burgers I’ve ever seen. We did get some delicious bakery items that cost maybe a penny a piece, so that was a plus.
And that brings me to the next thing I’d do differently… I wish we could have explored more of the towns around the island. “Town” may be too strong of a word, maybe “village” is better, but the locals on the island seemed so incredibly friendly that it would have been nice to spend a little more time around them and a little less time waiting in line with the other tourists to get a photo of the Chocolate Hills. Seriously, all the local people seemed lovely. Those who worked at the resort were wonderful and friendly, always smiling at you when you’d pass by. And it wasn’t just at the resort, people smiled at us wherever we went. Nearly every stranger I made eye contact with would smile and wave. And then there was the young boy who wanted to sell us candles for mass outside the nearby church. We politely declined and he started to turn away, but then turned back around and made sure to say “Welcome to Bohol!” before he left. I think my favorite thing that we did on the island was visit this touristy spot where you can see how people make knives out of scrap metal, weave baskets, dance, etc. I really thought I would hate it because it was this little faux village clearly set up to attract tourists. But I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, it was touristy and yes, the people there had various local goods to sell, but they weren’t pushy about it. Each person who showed us what they do/make seemed genuinely excited to share and talk about their craft. They were happy to share a little bit about local life to any tourist interested in listening.
So in addition to spending a little less time on Bohol, I wish I had spent more time engaging with the people on the island. Basically, I should have spent a little more time asking the local guide about the Tarsiers instead of judging the conservatory building (but like… it was a little pathetic). Or we could have really engaged with the locals by going to the Sunday cock fights (church and then cock fighting… just your typical Sunday). Not only do I think that would have been a very authentic, Bohol experience, but after 4 days of listening to hundreds (thousands? millions?) of roosters, I don’t think I would have been too sad to see some get knocked down a peg or two.
I’m kidding… I don’t condone any animal fighting… but also… it for sure would have been a very local experience, and that is what this trip seemed to be missing. So go to Bohol, stay a couple of nights (just a couple), avoid the cock fighting, but do engage with the people who live on the island, they are what make it worth visiting.
Camping & Caviar 