Baclayon, Bohol. (Tagbilaran to Oslob by boat and bus)

Can you find Mr Gecko playing hide and seek?

I wandered down to the main road in Alona beach and found a bunch of shady looking tricycle drivers and asked for a quote to our next destination Baclayon which was on Bohol Island. It was a short hop considering at 26km but a heated exchange broke out between the drivers as they jostled each other for my custom. Eventually the alpha male of the gaggle presented himself to me and we arrived at a mutually agreeable price for the transport. I jumped aboard and we picked Kathy and all our luggage up from Bananaland then set out for a very cramped and uncomfortable journey to our next accommodation which was a mountain retreat in the jungle. When I booked it, I did not realise how out of the way it was. We were travelling up a very steep hill when the tricycle decided it did not like it with all the weight on board and next thing we noticed the driver had lost control and we had left the road and had a large flowery bush trying to get in the cabin with us. At this point it became comical as we both had to disembark the tricycle as it did not have enough power to get up the hill and it was stuck halfway. We started to walk up the hill in the blistering heat laughing at how we get into these scrapes but the tricycle was not coming. We looked back to see the driver doing some impressive wheelies and burning his clutch out with all the weight of our luggage in the back. The driver summoned Kathy back indicating he needed some ballast over the front wheel to stop the tricycle from trying to mate with the bush again. Again the tricycle went off at strange tangents across the road and I could tell by the exasperated expression on the tricycle drivers face that this was fast becoming an end game and he was going to dump us in the middle of nowhere. The only option  I could see was for Kathy and I to push. So that’s what we did, having to push our own taxi up the hill until we got to a flatter plain. We then reboarded and drove on but the road turned into a dirt track which then turned into a flooded field., Being guided by our phone GPS, I was having serious concerns that I had plotted the wrong address into our Maps.me App and our tricycle driver kept looking at us in disbelief and I could not blame him as we ventured deeper into the jungle. Just as the drivers patience was about to be exhausted we found our new digs at the Vidas Mountain Stay.

View from our studio.

The approach to it was an extreme incline so envisaging the tricycle ending up with the front wheel reaching for the sky again and us mating with another bush, we told the driver to drop us at the bottom of the hill at which point he asked us for a bonus payment for his troubles. Not really in a position to refuse we paid him the extra which would help towards a new clutch that he would no doubt be requiring when he eventually got home. The climb to the reception, which was at the highest point of the complex as you would expect carrying 25kg of luggage each, was torturous and when we arrived I thought Kathy and I were going into cardiac arrest the way we were both gasping for air. We met a dippy but charming young lady called Dianne who we would later find out had a memory of a goldfish and who seemed to have given our booking to someone else which was remarkable as they only had 2 units for hire. They palmed us off with a studio apartment which did not have the same killer views as the other rooms but was bigger and had a kitchenette which turned out to be invaluable in the days to come being in the middle of nowhere. We still complained though at their foolish administration and they quickly knocked 20% off the studio price so attaining the upper hand we decided to extend our stay. That was good business for us.

Join the dots to spell mosquito.

   So we had no shops, nowhere to eat, and no transport but some great views and it was so quiet. Feeling like Robinson Crusoe did when he was stranded on a desert island we needed a bike to get out. One was soon delivered to us from a local company, who sensing we had no choice in the matter decided to overcharge us. That done we ventured into town….well I call it a town but it was more like a village from medieval times. It did have a pizza shack so that was appreciated and a shop that sold beer which was also a relief but apart from the local haberdashery of a market that was it. No bars, no restaurants, just curious locals. Back at the studio we got Dippy Dianne to load us up with a few home comforts which included a DVD player so we could watch at last, our series 3 Peaky Blinders disc that we had been carrying around since Borneo. We had been trying in every destination for someone to transfer it onto our memory stick but had found no one capable of doing it. You just take for granted your level of education and computer skills and expect everybody else to have a similar level of understanding but this is not the case. If it can’t be done by smartphone then no one is interested. Unfortunately Dippy Dianne had lost the remote control so we watched the first 2 episodes and then found out we could not progress on to the other episodes. Dohh! Luckily we had multi channel bad American TV so the evenings weren’t so so bad coupled with a glass or two of Red Horse beers.

Take me to your leader....we come in peace.

  The next day we hit the road, or rather the dirt tracks to the Tarsier rehabilitation centre near Corella. The drive there was an agonising bump and grind across country in the jungle but was worth the effort as we saw 5 of the cute little beasties hanging out in the jungle. Being nocturnal they were mostly asleep but still accessible to photograph. Silence had to be adhered to at all times and you were not allowed to invade their personal space so the ethics of the centre were reasonable. Kathy and I were thrilled to finally see these shy and rare creatures as they are now endangered because man is destroying all their habitat and they commit suicide if stressed at all so can not be kept as pets.
 After this visit the heavens opened up so we took refuge at a place called Nutz Hutz near Loboc which is a backpacker nirvana on the banks of the Loboc river in an impressive valley with a restaurant posessing a vista of wall to wall pristine jungle. We had some excellent food and fresh coffee while we watched the rain lash down in the jungle for a couple of hours. Luckily they had a good supply of reading material. When the rain stopped, the sky still looked moody so we retreated back to safety of the studio.

Nutz hutz had the most perfect view from the restaurant.

  Next day, running low on supplies and needing to check out travel connections for our next leg to Oslob on Cebu Island, (and get money out which was proving more and more of an issue)we drove into the biggest town Tagbilaran. There we promptly got lost and drove around in circles for a while until we found the port. Again we had trouble finding the tickets we wanted to get the shortest route to Argao. The time that the boat left in the morning made it impossible to make the connection in view of where we were located so had to plump the long way around by getting tickets back to Cebu and then get a bus down to Oslob.  We then found downtown and stocked up on all sorts of goodies that were hard to find elsewhere and drove back to base with our booty.
 Next day we headed to see the Chocolate hills which were visually enchanting and worth the long drive. We broke the journey up by doing a zipline over the Loboc river gorge which was incredible, if it was only a 40 second buzz. We were launched off the side of the gorge and plunged into the jungle laying down in canopy beds is the best way to describe it. The return journey was by a rickety cable car that was slow and left you suspended across the gorge for amazing unspoilt views of the river and jungle below. Also we enjoyed the Tarsier visit so much the other day we passed another more commercial visitor centre so took a look in there. The Tarsiers were more accessible but again mostly asleep but made for some killer photos.

They lied to us. A bit hilly but not made of chocolate.

   Driving around Bohol, it was so beautiful, hardly populated with vast stretches of pristine green jungle intermingled with emerald green rice paddies. Every corner had a new vista. It could be a mahogany forest, a sweeping river, a jungle laden gorge or an unexpected limestone protrusion for your eyes to feast on. At times it was hard to keep my eyes on the road. Also it had far fewer tourists which made it more unique.
 Back at the studio we found that we had a visitor behind the TV mount which at very odd moments decided to shout at enormous volume “gecko, gecko” at us. Sensing our sleep was about to be interrupted by this monster on steroids we evicted it from behind the TV with a long stick. It retaliated by dispatching some menacing growls at us which I have to admit were scary. When we did poke it out it was a lot bigger than we expected and now it was mad. It proceeded to thrash around the studio trying to find a safe and dark place to hide, freaking us out with its speed. (it was after we had a few Red horse beers so were excitable to say the least) The original plan was to catch it in a box but it was too feisty for us to handle so lobbed flip flops at it to direct it to the door so it could escape to the outside.  When we accomplished this which took longer than we anticipated due to our poor flip flop bunging skills, I checked outside to see if it was O.K. to find there were loads of them on the wall all ganging up on us like a scene from a Stephen King movie, so I shut the door promptly and double locked it to try to thwart their entry into our den for their expected feeding frenzy. Sleep was a bit broken that night.

Begin launch sequence for blast off.

  Next day after the excitement of the day before we just chilled out, caught up on some stuff like laundry that dippy Dianne promptly lost and then forgot to order our taxi for the morning. Luckily her parents were a bit more on the ball so they arranged it for us otherwise I envisaged us being stranded here in the land that time forgot. The A/C also decided to spill its guts all over the floor and then the light stopped working due to the socket being rusty. We did not report it to Dippy Dianne as I could imagine her sticking  her fingers in the light socket while standing in the pool of water of the spilt guts of the A/C unit and giving us a free human firework display then giving us the dilemma of what to do with the corpse. Overall we totally loved Bohol as it was unspoilt and the locals friendly.
Next destination is Oslob for whale shark swimming.

There you are you noisy bugger! Now get out of here........