After travelling with Jules & Del through 3 countries and numerous fun times, it was finally time to part ways. They were heading back to the States after a year away – 10 months of van life in Australia and 2 months of backpacking through Asia. We were headed to take a ferry to our next destination in the Philippines — Panglao, Bohol.
The ferry terminal was only 0.7 miles away from our hostel, so we set off on foot towards the terminal. We quickly realised that 0.7 miles feels a lot longer when it’s 30 degrees out and you’re carrying 25 kg worth of bags (yes we overpacked but no we cannot bring ourselves to ditch anything). After about a 20 minute walk, we finally arrived (very sweaty!) at the ferry terminal. We saw our boat anchored about 100 metres off the coast, and checked in with the terminal worker. Because it was low tide, the ferry couldn’t pull any closer to shore and we had to take a smaller rowboat out to board our ferry.
The ride was fairly uneventful, and took around 2 hours with beautiful views the whole way. It was an open air ferry, so the sea breeze was very relaxing. We pulled closer to the shore in Panglao, and had to anchor about 100 metres off shore again and have a rowboat run us to the shore. Unfortunately, even the rowboat couldn’t get close enough to shore and we had to disembark in about knee deep water. We were both wearing sneakers so it was a bit chaotic, but we took off our shoes and held our bags over our head as we waded through the water to shore.
We had procrastinated booking a place in Panglao so most of the good spots were booked up. We ended up booking a hostel with medium reviews and no AC, so we were slightly concerned at what we were getting ourselves into. We pulled up to our hostel, Hope Homes, and checked in. Immediately, we were hit with an awful stench that smelled like decaying cats. Strike number 1. We checked in at the front desk, and settled into our little bungalow. The room itself wasn’t terrible, it was pretty spacious with a dresser, bed, fan, and bathroom. We quickly discovered that despite being about 10 steps away from the reception/restaurant, the wifi didn’t work in the rooms at all. The wifi was blazing fast in the reception/restaurant area, but the signal just wouldn’t reach the rooms. Strike number 2. Strike number 3 came when we took showers – the water coming out of the tap was straight up salty sea water, so nothing ever felt really clean. We had been at this place for all of 45 minutes and already decided we hated it, but we had it booked for 4 nights so we just had to make the best of the situation.
That evening, we sat in the reception and researched some things to do around Panglao, and one of the most popular suggestions that kept coming up was a snorkelling tour of Balicasag Island. I looked around different tour sites, and organised a private boat captain to take us dolphin watching, snorkelling at Balicasag Island, and to the beautiful Virgin Island Sandbar in 2 days.
We felt too tired to go out and try to find a place for dinner that night, so I ordered a bread & bratwurst from the hotel restaurant menu. It was disgusting, so we decided to never order from the hotel again. I also asked for a cup of hot water, and put a peppermint teabag I had in my bag to make some tea. We were the only ones in the restaurant, but the lady working kept giving me dirty looks. She finally came over and gestured to a sign posted on the wall “no outside food or drinks allowed”. She said that because I had brought my own tea bag, I couldn’t sit in the reception and had to walk back to my bungalow (10 steps away and fully in view of the reception area). I was a bit confused as this wasn’t a proper “restaurant” that served outside customers, it was just a restaurant that was available for the hotel guests, and I was already paying to be there. It was quite off putting that they would make an arbitrary rule like this when the only reason I was even in the common spaces was because the wifi wouldn’t reach the rooms. On top of this, we had filled our water bottle with what we thought was a public water dispenser in the reception area. Shortly after we filled our bottle, we saw the staff move the entire water dispenser into a locked back room to prevent us from using it again. The general attitude by everybody in the staff was just horrible and it left quite a bad taste in our mouths.
The next day, we decided to go explore one of the most popular areas of Panglao: Alona Beach. It was about a 30 minute walk from our hostel, but the roads don’t have sidewalks so it made it a bit more perilous. Alona Beach itself was beautiful, lots of white sand beaches and palm trees, with restaurants and bars lining the beach. We walked all the way down to the end of the beach to do some snorkelling!
The marine life wasn’t as vibrant as many of the other places we had been, but it was still fun to swim around and look at the different starfish, coral, and fishies in the area. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beach, had some delicious kebabs for lunch, and soaked in the sun.
That evening, we dropped off our laundry, and prepped our bags for our big adventure to Balicasag Island the next day. Our captain had told us to meet us at the Panglao port at 6 am, which was about a 2.5 mile (1 hour) walk from our hostel. We weren’t sure if any tuk tuk’s were going to be available that early, so we decided to leave our hostel at 5 and do the walk to be safe.
Saz also made one of the most important discoveries of our whole trip – an amazing sandwich shop right around the corner called Bread & Blend. One of our biggest struggles in the Philippines has been finding good food. A lot of the cuisine here is deep fried, bland, or very fatty cuts of meat. Bread & Blend was a newly opened (within the last 2 weeks!) smoothie and sandwich shop owned by a Spanish man and his Filipina wife. The sandwiches were AMAZING. Saz got the turkey bacon avocado sandwich and I got the pulled pork sandwich. The ingredients were so fresh, with really delicious cuts of meat and amazing sauces. Considering we couldn’t find a single grocery store on the entire island of Panglao, we had no idea how they did it but we weren’t complaining!
The next morning, the alarm went off at 4:15 am and we packed up our things. We started our walk in the dark, and it was flat and basically on one road the whole time. There were actually a bunch of tuk tuk’s that offered us a ride, but we decided to just walk because we were already up anyways. We got to witness the beautiful sunrise and calmness of dawn in Panglao. Right at 6 am, we rocked up to the Panglao Port and met up with our boat captain, Emi.
The day was amazing. Our first stop was dolphin watching, and we were lucky enough to see at least 20-30 dolphins in 4 or 5 different pods frolic around us.
Our second stop was Balicasag Island, where there was an amazing snorkelling area in a marine sanctuary, with a huge cliff drop off that was amazing for practicing free diving. We also saw 3 or 4 different sea turtles, as well as jellyfish, sea snakes, and more.
The last stop of the day was the Virgin Island Sandbar. Because of high tide, the sandbar was nearly nonexistent when we arrived, but it was so relaxing to hang out in the beautiful crystal clear water and enjoy a few hours in the sun.
To read in more detail about our amazing time at Balicasag Island, click here.
Despite it feeling like the longest day ever, our boat trip was done by 11 am! We walked back to the hostel and spent the afternoon looking through our photos, picking up our laundry, working on some blog posts, and having more delicious sandwiches from Bread & Blend. We were also feeling sore from all of our walking and swimming, so we also made appointments to get foot massages the next day at a local place called Happy Foot! They even had a “pick up and drop off” service for the massage, which was such a nice touch!
The next day, we got picked up by our Happy Foot driver and got amazing 1 hour foot & shoulder massages. It really helped so much and we felt rejuvenated for more adventures afterwards!
We got dropped back off at the hotel, and realised that the power had gone out. Happy Foot must’ve had a generator, because the drive was only about 5 minutes. Apparently this was an island wide scheduled black out while the company did repairs, but Hope Homes didn’t tell us. We waited around for an hour or so hoping it would come back on, but without the fan it was too hot and stuffy in the room. Our beloved Bread & Blend didn’t have power either, so they were not making sandwiches that night.
Luckily, one of our friends we had met in Thailand had recommended a restaurant in Panglao called Sisa Bistro, which was about an hour walk away from our hostel. We called ahead to confirm that they had a generator and started our walk to Sisa.
The restaurant was very cute, and the food came out fairly quickly. I had the adobo chicken and Saz had their chef speciality – banana blossom with tofu in coconut milk. Both our dishes were yummy! Saz’s order specifically had a note on the menu that said “portion size – 2 people”, which she ambitiously still ordered… and subsequently only ate half of. We had a nice dinner, boxed Saz’s order up to go and enjoyed the AC for as long as we could and started our walk home. By the time we walked back to our hostel, the power was back on!
Because we had our leftovers, we asked the hostel staff if we could use the fridge overnight so our food didn’t go bad. Unsurprisingly, the pettiest people in Panglao said “no outside food in the fridge”. By this point, we were so put off by how rude and inhospitable these people were. There was no reason for them to not let us use their multiple fridges overnight, other than them being salty that we didn’t eat their nasty restaurant food. We sat fuming in the common area, researching a new place to stay at after our check out the next day. While we were still sitting in the common area, the employee on duty decided that she wanted to go to bed so she just turned off all the lights and fans. We had lost count of strikes by this point and we were so ready to leave.
The next morning, we packed up our bags, bought to go sandwiches from Bread and Blend, and flagged down a tuk tuk to take us to our new Panglao hostel – 29 Palms Panglao. We were so happy to escape Hope Homes, but unfortunately for us the tuk tuk we had flagged down was quite literally blind and also had no idea where our new hotel was. I pulled it up on my GPS to show him exactly where, but he just kept swatting my phone away saying he couldn’t see it because he had bad eyes. Instead, he would just pull over at random intervals and flag down strangers shouting “29 Palms!? Where is 29 Palms”. I kept trying to explain that I had it pulled up on my GPS and I would direct him, but to no avail. What should’ve been a 10 minute tuk tuk ride took about 25 with all of our random stops to yell “29 PALMS” at strangers.
We finally arrived at 29 Palms and it was truly an oasis. The owner was so cute and sweet, and was the exact antithesis of every horrible person we had met at Hope Homes. She let us check in early for free, and went above and beyond in every way. The bungalow itself was so cute and looked brand new, with a nice fridge (would’ve been useful yesterday!), a TV, a work station, bathroom, AC, and a full kitchen! It was amazing.
Our new spot was also within walking distance of one of the best snorkelling reefs in Panglao – Napaling Reef. We decided to walk over there to do some afternoon snorkelling. It was about a 30 minute walk to the reef and the entry to the water is at Molove Cliff Dive Resort. Pre COVID – you were able to snorkel this reef without a guide, but unfortunately the rules have changed and it’s now required to hire a guide. We were a bit disappointed by this news, but paid the guide fee of 200 PHP/person, met our guide Jason, and headed into the water.
The snorkelling was 100% worth the guide fee. Jason was great, and really let us take our time instead of rushing us like we had experienced at Sumilon Island and other spots. There was a huge cliff drop off which was really fun to free dive down into, and Jason even gave us a few tips and tricks on how to equalise and stay down longer. At one point, he swam deep into the crevice and disappeared for a while – he was under for a few minutes before emerging 20 feet away! The coral was super vibrant, there was tons of different marine life, and we saw another sea turtle! We ended up snorkelling for around 1.5 hours with Jason and really felt like we got our money’s worth.
After our snorkel, we used the shower facilities at Molove Cliff Dive Resort and asked if we could stay to watch the sunset. The resort has a built in diving board that you used to be able to cliff jump off of, but they no longer allow guests to jump because they are rehabilitating the coral in the water below and don’t want it disturbed. We sat at the end of the diving board to watch the beautiful sunset and enjoy our dinner. I sent the drone up to get a beautiful aerial perspective of the beautiful cliffs & sunset.
After dinner, we started our walk home and made friends with the friendly resort dog who followed us part way back.
The next morning, we woke up early for our adventure of the day – Chocolate Hills & Tarsier Sanctuary. We had rented a scooter from our hostel the evening before, and took off around 6:30 to make the 2 hour drive to the Chocolate Hills. The drive was absolutely gorgeous! It was so beautiful seeing rural Philippines, and we love the freedom of being able to explore on our own time.
The roads were wide, paved, and easy to drive, so it didn’t feel like 2 hours at all. We arrived at the Chocolate Hills just before 9 am, got our tickets, and parked in the lot. They have a free shuttle that takes you up the hill from the parking lot, but we decided to walk. It was only about a 15 minute walk but at quite a steep incline with absolutely no shade, so 5 minutes in we regretted our decision not to take the shuttle.
The Chocolate Hills themselves were cool but slightly underwhelming. You can’t climb them, so you just kinda look at them from the viewing platform. They are called the Chocolate Hills because they are brown during the dry season, but they were still pretty green when we went! Lime Hills perhaps?
We took some photos, walked around, and decided to head to our second stop – the Tarsier Sanctuary. The sanctuary is located in the town of Corella, about 1 hour drive from the Chocolate Hills. Again, the drive was absolutely beautiful and we couldn’t help but pull over and snap photos along the way!
The Tarsier Sanctuary is a protected area that serves as a refuge for one of the smallest primates in the world – the Philippine tarsier. These tiny creatures are known for their big eyes and their ability to rotate their heads almost 360 degrees. They are also incredibly elusive and can be difficult to spot in the wild. Fortunately at the sanctuary, the guides point them out so you can see the cute little creatures!
Upon arrival at the sanctuary, we paid 100 PHP ($1.80 USD)/person for entry and were shown a short informational video about tarsiers and their habitat. There are several different species of tarsiers, but the Tarsier Sanctuary in Bohol is home to the Philippine tarsier (Scientific name: Carlito syrichta). It is one of the smallest primates in the world, with an average size of only about 3-6 inches (7.5-15 cm) in length and a weight of around 2-5 ounces (60-140 grams). The Philippine tarsier is found only in a few islands in the Philippines and is considered an endangered species due to habitat loss and hunting.
After the video, the the guide led us out to the sanctuary and to our first tarsier! The sanctuary is set in a lush forest and offers visitors a peaceful and serene environment to explore. Tarsiers are very sensitive to sound and touch, so visitors are not allowed to touch or hold them, and also asked to refrain from talking/making noise/asking any questions until after the tour is over. However, we were welcome to take photos of these fascinating tiny creatures as they clung to their branches. In total, the guide showed us 4 tarsiers, and the tour lasted about 10 minutes.
Sadly, we also learned that there are many businesses that exploit the Tarsiers and use unethical business practices to get money from tourists, such as letting guests hold them, or building fake habitats for the Tarsiers to cut costs.
Unlike those businesses, The Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary is an ethical conservation centre, working to protect and preserve the tarsier population in Bohol. The sanctuary conducts research on the tarsiers and their habitat, and also provides education and outreach programs to local communities and schools. If visiting Bohol, make sure to avoid any of the unethical Tarsier excursions and go to the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary instead!
After our day of adventuring, we drove to (you guessed it!) Bread & Blend for a delicious dinner. We were leaving the next day for Cebu City, and absolutely devastated to be leaving Bread & Blend Panglao. We decided to buy takeaway sandwiches for our ferry ride to Cebu City as a final token to remember this amazing island by.
The next morning, we packed up our bags, said goodbye to the beautiful 29 Palms, hopped in our tuk tuk and drove to the ferry port! Next stop – Cebu City for a night before flying to Coron, Palawan for our Big Dream Boat Man trip.
