Our last stop in the Philippines was Bohol. Getting there—surprise, surprise—involved more trikes and ferries, but the journey wasn’t too bad. We were greeted by a lovely private room in a hotel (with a working shower!) and decided to splash out a bit (£20pp a night is splashing out here!) for our final two nights in the country.
For our first full day, we had a few places we wanted to visit, so we booked onto a day tour. It was £40 each—which is pretty steep by Filipino standards—but the reviews were glowing, so we figured it’d be worth it.
Sadly, it was a bit underwhelming. Our first stop was a man-made forest planted by students about 50 years ago, filled with towering mahogany trees. We’d hoped to walk through the forest or visit the eco centre, but instead we just pulled up at the side of the road for a quick photo stop.
Next was the tarsier sanctuary—the only place you can see these tiny mammals in the Philippines. That part was genuinely cool. The part of the sanctuary open to the public is small, to avoid disturbing the animals, so the visit only took about 15 minutes, it started with a very sinister looking tarsier puppet but thankfully the tarsiers themselves were less creepy and very adorable—about the size of your palm, with babies no bigger than a thumb.
After that, we tried some coconut milk ice cream served in a crispy, prawn cracker-style cone, which was actually pretty tasty.
The final main stop was a viewpoint over the Chocolate Hills, a cluster of around 1,500 limestone hills that turn chocolate brown in the dry season, giving them their name. Again, it was cool to see, but we were only given 15 minutes to enjoy it before being ushered back into the van.
After just an hour and a half of sightseeing, the “official” tour was over. The rest of the afternoon was spent being shuttled around to “optional extra” attractions—basically overpriced tourist traps. We checked the reviews for each one and found they barely scraped two stars, and each cost around £15 extra per person. After each attraction the group opting in slowly dwindled until eventually we all agreed to skip the last two stops and just head back.
Looking back, we definitely would’ve been better off hiring a trike and doing it ourselves—but you live and learn.
The weirdest part came later. That evening, our tour guide started WhatsApping me, asking for a 5-star review. When I said we didn’t feel comfortable doing that, she sent screenshots of her and her boss slagging off us and other guests. When I told her I thought that was inappropriate, she told me she’d be fired and wouldn’t be able to feed her kids unless we left a 5-star review. So that’s how the tour ended up with such glowing ratings! In the end, I told her we didn’t want to leave a misleading review or get her in trouble, so we’d just leave no review at all. A very bizarre customer service strategy!
After a disappointingly expensive day we decided to just spend our last full day in the Philippines relaxing around the pool, making the most of the sunshine and doing some planning for our next stop of Busan, Korea.
I’ll tell you all about it soon, love, Alice x