Chocolate Hills -Bohol, Phillippines

Just one month ago, tourists were attempted to be kidnapped in Bohol, but we decided to try our luck despite the warnings. The hotel’s tourist service at our hotel in Cebu organized our transportation, and we made our way to Cebu ferry terminal and boarded the boat to Bohol.

Chocolate Hills

We had a driver picking us up on the other side to take us to the chocolate hills. These one of a kind mountains are between 30 and 50 meters high, and there are 1500, plus minus 250 of them, depending on who you talk to. Geologists think that this is a strange limestone hill based on impenetrable clay, making them unsuitable for vegetation to grow on. A more fun story is that a giant fell in love with a mortal woman and the hills are his tears shed after her death. The hills are covered in grass that turns brown in the dry season, hence the name.

Travel to Bohol

The Chocolate Hills are smack in the center of the island of Bohol, in the Visayas island group in the southern Philippines. Bohol can easily be accessed by flights from Manila. Cebu Pacific and Philippine Airlines have daily flights to Tagbilaran. 

You can also get there by boat from Cebu, Manila, Leyte, Mindanao, Siquijor, and Negros. The most popular option is to get to Cebu city via the airport and from there to take a 90-minute ferry to Tagbilaran. There are nine ships daily running between Cebu and Tagbilaran and a one-way ticket costs 500 pesos while a return ticket costs of 800 pesos.

Getting around

Once you arrive in the main city, you will need another ride to the central part of the island, to the town of Carmen. You have plenty of options to get there. First, you can book one of the many tours available that will take you to other destinations as well.

If you don’t want to book a tour, you can rent a car or a jeepney in Tagbilaran. If you want to ride a scooter or a small motorbike you will be able to rent one for a day for 400 pesos. Alternatively, you can take taxis as well, but these are not the cheapest nor the most adventurous way to get to the hills.

Going back from the hills of Bohol, our driver stopped by the Tarsier sanctuary to see if we could spot one of these strange creatures. The primates are tiny little monkey looking animals only found in south-east Asia. We found a few in the trees and managed to take a few pictures. We also stopped at a butterfly farm and met a funny employee that told us about the butterflies and took hilarious pictures of us through the glass where they displayed the butterflies. After a quick stop at a church that was ruined during the last earthquake, we were on our way back to Cebu.