Bohol and Cebu Travel Log!!!

BOHOL AND CEBU!!!

Alright, it's been a while since I've written anything here, already I can hear the scrape of spiders spewing out cobwebs from their asses. Shoo you!

If anything, I've wanted to do one here of another movie review (Yes, say it with me... "ANOTHER movie review!?" *roll eyes*). But bear with me alright? Anyway, I'm loosening up a bit, taking off my shirt, well maybe not that much, but I am deviating from my overly complicated and collar-tight insights on the vernacular world of silver screen productions. In other words, I'm jacking off a while from it till another time. And here I have here is a pretty lengthy and boooooring account of my trip to Bohol. None of you want to read this, it's long, it's boring and it has nothing to do with you. So if you continue past this paragraph, consider yourself warned and spanked. So stop reading now... go on... stop.... no? Alright, don't say I didn't warn you.

You see, we didn't pay for these trips, our last one in Palawan was the same thing. We, along with two teachers (Rhoda and Joy *Joy's the guy by the way and the other's the gal*), were supposed to accompany my cousin, who is a very special kid. No really he is, but he's also the most lovable boy in the world, not to mention already inches above me in height (curse you God of the Hypothalamus!!!). Oh and he loves airplanes... No, he reeeaaallly loves airplanes. He has a vocabulary of about a hundred words, the very first of which was "airplane".

Anyway, we flew to Tagbilaran, Bohol in Cebu Pacific at the 5:30 flight. So it was crappy start. I was sleepy and tired, we took taxi in which we got ourselves a full set of Barangay bodyguards, and we flew in an economic and cheapskate plane that rocked your comfortability zone all the way to null.

After getting down on the shabby little airport, we paid of the driver assigned to us cause he's little Tamaraw Fx couldn't hold all eight of us. We got another, wasted no time and were off.

First stop was the Blood Compact statue. For those of you who aren't keen on your Philippine History, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi was the conquistador who first established here a colony back in 1565. In Bohol, he performed a Blood Compact with Datu Sikatuna as a sign of friendship. It was a statue. So what?

Next was this amazing old church. And when I say old I do mean ooold. Its practically a museum. Then there was a man-made forest. No, we didn't build it with our own hands, but three generations of locals have been tending it until it grew to this beautiful thick forest. The tree placements are a bit too symmetrical to be natural, but it's stunning nonetheless.

But after that was the big daddy of Bohol, yes that's right. The Chocolate Hills, one of the country's entries into the contest for the new 7 Natural Wonders of the world. And I must say, I'm kind of disappointed. No, not the hills, but how much they showed us. With over a thousand of these beautiful hill formed from millions of years worth of grounded coral, we were only treated to a few handful. I wanted to really see the rest, but what we were treated to was astounding nonetheless. I couldn't help but walk to the cliff edge and take a few snapshots of these mounds. Oh, and some were really brown, but hey looked more like sh$^* than chocolate. It was beautiful though....

We were then left on a TWO hour river cruise on the Loboc. The food was crap and the trip waaay too long. But the views we saw was second only to the hills.

After that, well there really wasn't much to do after that. All that is except to see the Tarsiers, and that's what we saw. We weren't really allowed to touch or poke them or anything, but a bill palm slip into a trainer's hand got us an exlusive picture taking opportunity at the back, away from the owner's eyes. Those little critters were adorable, being the world's smallest primate, I just wanted to squish it in my hand!!!... well in a, err, non-violent manner...

We then hopped on a 2 hour ferry boat that would take us all the way to Cebu. It was noisy and clanky, plus they were showing a very pirated copy of Jumper and some Kareoke tunes. In other words, it was torture.

Upon arriving in Cebu, and some miscommunication with a couple of cabs, we finally got to the hotel, Golden Peak, where the reservation failed to give us the connecting room we wanted so we got upgraded to family suites. And for family suites they were awfully small.

We got lost looking for the dinner place, Smoking Grill, but once there the food more than made up for lunch's awful taste. They were local and they were definitely filled with flavor.

Next day we travelled to Sto. Nino Basilica where due to the sheer number of people we had to hear mass from the garden O_o. We saw the little statue again, said a little prayer. And while the Visayan mass went on I roamed the garden taking shots of everything I could find. We donated some money for mass, I offered one for Jansen. Then we left for the museum where my mom left her Sto Nino medal (she left her novena there three years ago and we saw it on display there).

Back at the hotel, we ate breakfast, checked out and took two taxis in a loooong trip to Mactan where the anniversary of The Battle of Mactan was being celebrated with Pacquiao himself playing Lapu-Lapu. Of course, by our luck, the taxi left us a preety long distance off. After a tedious walk under the noon sun, we arrived there to find the party over. Oh well, that was a waste. And for those of you not aware, Lapu- Lapu was the native sultan who defied Ferdinand Magellan and killed him in the Battle of Mactan. The surviving Spaniards of that trip returned to make world history. It's partly the man's fault anyway. He deployed 48 men on a mission gains 1,500. What in the world was he thinking?

After that, we made a quick tour of the remaining parts of Cebu. From the Guitar making shop to Cebu's own Intramuros, a Fort de San Pedro. Then there was a quick tour of the city, some of the old houses, some of the older houses and finally some of the reeeally old houses. More than anything else, it was practically a mini-Manila. We even saw its own version of Beverly Hills before visiting a Taoist Temple for a "quick" prayer.

After everything was said and done, we settled that night with a set of Burger McDo's and Big Macs and we traveled home with Philippine Airlines, which was much more comfortable than Cebu Pacific. Well, I suppose that's a quick gist of it all, and I'm off for the night. Until next time where I go back to my movies and maybe a little game here and there. Chao!