Bohol is one of my dream destinations. It has always my dream to see the famous
chocolate hills and to look at the Philippine Tarsier, one of the world’s
smallest primates up close. I have tried
looking for promo flights to Tagbilaran
City (Bohol’s
capital) several times but promo fares run out quickly.
After
almost four years, I’ll be taking Zest Air once again. My last Zest Air flight was in October of
2009. For this flight, we checked-in at
NAIA Terminal 4 or the old domestic terminal.
Renovations were done and soon it will handle International flights due
to the presence of immigration and customs counter. We checked-in early and waited for two hours
inside the pre-departure area. Our
flight left on time and we reached our destination on time as well.
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| Tagbilaran Airport Terminal |
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| The Welcome arch outside the airport |
Upon
arriving at Tagbilaran
Airport, we immediately
went outside upon getting our luggage.
To our surprise, our arranged airport pick-up was not around. I called the resort and it seems like they do
not know my reservation even if I confirmed my arrival by calling them 3 days
in advance and by texting them before departure. Luckily, one of their service vehicles was
still around the city. They called the
driver to return to the airport and pick us up. Finally, the shuttle service
came after almost 10 minutes. Our
driver, Jojo, gave us some facts about the province. We enjoyed hearing stories about the place so
I decided not to complain anymore upon arriving at the resort. We stayed at Dumaluan Beach Resort located in
Panglao Island.
The resort itself is good and our room was located right in front of their
swimming pool. The room we got was clean
and adequate, there’s a cable TV but it has no mini ref. There’s a free set of soap, shampoo, and
toothbrush, however, there is no complimentary bottled water. Since we needed water, I asked the front desk
where we can get complimentary water. She
said that we can get water from the restaurant.
She also said if we have empty bottle, we can refill it there. But when we went to the restaurant, they
refuse to give us water, they said they can only give water at the restaurant
and we must drink it only there. Then
you can hear the front desk personnel and the restaurant staff arguing in their
native dialect. So instead of insisting,
we walked-out and bought bottled water at the souvenir store. The amount was way too expensive for a brand
that is obviously cheap elsewhere. The
resort is well maintained, they have a good number of employees but they need
serious training. I won’t elaborate
every bad experience with their staff as it will ruin my story!
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| Superior room at Dumaluan Beach Resort |
We
walked along the beach for a while and discovered that the sand is comparable
to that of Boracay. For dinner, we ate
at their beach front restaurant. You can
order in advance and reserve the seat you want, just tell them what time you
want the food to be served. The food
tastes just right, but a bit expensive for its class. You can either pay at the restaurant or charge
it to your room bill, but I suggest paying in every transaction in order for
you to control your budget.
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On
our next day, we woke up early for our buffet breakfast. The selections are simple but tastes
fine. Our tour is scheduled at 8 am so
we were already prepared before taking our breakfast. For our tour, we had a different driver,
Manuel. Unlike other tours, their driver
also acts as tour guides. They give some
information and gladly answers any question.
Our first stop was the chocolate hills.
It is located in Carmen, Bohol, almost
2 hours drive from the resort. We can
already see come hills along the road leading to the viewing site. There are actually a total of 1,776 hills in
the area. It was named chocolate hills because
during summer it is brownish in color. To
get the best view, you have to climb more than 100 steps toward the top of a
hill. The view from above was
spectacular, we can’t stop taking pictures around. We spent more than 30 minutes before we
finally went down.
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| My first Breakfast Buffet |
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| The Famous Chocolate Hills of Bohol |
(To
be continued…..)
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