Trip Ko Lang

Bohol Trip 2009

It all started with PAL offering seat sales; our group checking available dates, promo fares online and eyeing Bohol as our travel destination. We booked 30 Aug to 1 Sept for the reason that 31 Aug was a holiday and gave us an extra day for our trip. Days after, we paid for our airfare in PAL office, emailed and called resorts, texted tour guides and waited patiently for these days to come… Then the budget needs to be in place and so we came up with a summary of our ideal budget for the whole trip in Bohol.

Here’s a quick summary of our Bohol budget  for a group of 5 pax.

Airfare – 2,000php/pax (paid separately)

——————

Hotel/resort – 4,000php/2 nights
Day/land tour – 2,500php
Sea tour – 1,500php
NAIA terminal fee – 1,000php
Tagbilaran terminal fee – 100php
Entrance fees – 870php
Loboc buffet lunch – 1,800php (plus the driver)
Food (5 meals) – 5,000php (free breakfast at the resort)
Other expenses – 2,000php

Total – 18,770php
Per pax – 3,754php – 4,300php

But at the end of our trip, we still had 3k left and managed to take home 600php each.

Here’s our planned itinerary:

Day 1 – 30 Aug 2009

8am to 9am – Depart from Manila to Tagbilaran
9am onwards – Day Tour starts upon arrival – includes blood compact, Baclayon church and museum, biggest python,  Tarsier, Loboc river, hanging bridge, man made forest, butterflies, Chocolate hills, Hinagdanan cave and Bohol bee farm

Actual Itinerary:

9.30am to 11.30am – Visited blood compact, Baclayon church and museum, and Tarsier.

11.30am to 1.00pm – Lunch at Loboc river

1.00pm to 5.00pm – Chocolate hills, butterfly, man made forest, hanging bridge, biggest python and souvenir shop.

Due to time constraint, we missed to visit Hinagdanan cave and Bohol bee farm. For further details of our exciting day tour, please wait for my following travel blogs… If you are interested to avail of our day tour, you may contact Kuya Tatsky at 0910-8112091, he is very accommodating and we got our ‘sulit‘ day tour for only 2,500php with a friendly driver Kuya Roy and riding a comfortable Starex van.

6.00pm to 7.00pm – Travelled to our selected resort Tierra Azul

8.00pm onwards – ‘Paluto’ dinner by the beach, inuman and sleeping time

Day 2 – 31 Aug 2009

5.30am onwards – Start of sea tour – includes dolphin watching, Balicasag island and Virgin island

Afternoon – Free time

Actual Itinerary:

6.30am – Boat ride started; of course we had delays (typical pinoy ), too much time eating our breakfast and getting ourselves ready…

8.00am – In the middle of nowhere, haha, waiting and watching the dolphins… It was fun, they didn’t disappoint us and we saw quite a number of dolphins in action.

9.00am – Arrived in Balicasag Island, known for the snorkelling spot but we didn’t avail of it, but if you are interested they offer snorkelling gears and mini boat ride for extra charges (I think around 150php per pax for the gears and another 100-150php for the mini boat)

9.00am to 10.30am – We walked around the island and stumbled on a pleasant looking and I think the only resort on the island – Balicasag Island Dive Resort. We paid 200php to swim in their pool and beach. Had some of our photos taken in the beautiful island with clean water, and relaxing scenery.

11.00am to 12.30pm – Satisfying lunch on the island

There’s a ‘paluto’ on the island, where you can buy seafoods (fish, squid, shrimps, etc.) and have them cook any style you want – have it fried, with soup, grilled, etc. We bought one big fish, forgot the name, we had it grilled and sinigang; and bought squid and made it calamares. There was a cooking fee of 100php per style. I think our food amounted to almost 1,300php with rice, coke, water and 2 buko. It was delicious and this is the meal we most enjoyed.

12.30pm to 1.30pm – Visited Virgin island, which has the sand bar, and is definitely a very beautiful spot to simply relax, enjoy the island view and take wonderful shots.

1.30pm to 2.30pm – Travelled back to Panglao on a bit rough and scary boat ride due to big, big waves….

For our sea tour, our contact is Mang Viao, another very accommodating person, you can reach him at 0916-4645214 and we got the whole sea tour for only 1,500php.

3.00pm to 5.00pm – Rest time, played cards in our room.

5.00pm onwards – Walked by the beach to take some shots and find a place for our dinner.

Day 3 – 1 Sept 2009

Actual Itinerary:

5.00am – Wake up time; bad morning for all of us, water disruption in our room, I’ll explain on this further in my resort review.

6.00am – Travelled to Tagbilaran airport.

7.30am – Flight back to Manila.

Though the trip was really short, we all had a great time exploring Tagbilaran, Bohol and Panglao Island. Had fun bonding moments, took great snap shots, and will forever remember this adventurous experience in Bohol.

Here are 5 things to do before going on a trip. I have gathered these useful tips based on personal experiences as an appointed planner of the group/initiator/adventure lover/eager traveller with my family and friends’ holiday trips.

1. Google it. Do online research on your travel destination. Google will provide you with good results from different  blogger experiences on hotels, beach resorts, how to get there, accommodation rates, places to visit and etc. You will get a more friendly and realistic reviews/comments and not just learning about it from the companies/businesses’ point of view.

2. Ask your friends. Tell them your plans and ask if they know something about the place. They might refer a good place to stay or suggest interesting things to do that can help make your planning a lot easier.

3. Booked early. If you have already finalized your travel destination, date for your trip and confirmed the people coming with you, then you can now booked your transportation (bus/plane/rent a van) and hotel/resort. It is always advisable to book early so you can avail of cheaper rates, you have time to save money and avoid any last minute change of plans.

4. Write down your Itinerary. Yes you have to put everything on writing, set a meeting with your group to discuss the things you want to do, sights and places you want to visit, food to try and etc. Include estimated time, how many hours will be spent on one place, give some time adjustments or make your schedule flexible in case something unexpected would arise during the trip. Don’t forget to consider your travel time in between places and available transportation.

5. Budget your expenses. The most important part in any trip, putting in mind your allotted budget, your actual expenses and how will you be spending wisely on your trip. But this depends on you; some would go on a trip to really splurge while others would go on a tight budget trip just to spend their vacation. Set your transportation, accommodation, food, and other expenses. Give allowances so that you won’t be short with money, ready for any emergencies and if ever you will still have money left after the trip then it will give you a good feeling that you didn’t go over budget and have spent reasonably the whole trip.

These are my 5 travel tips on planning before a trip, really helpful from my experiences, made planning easier and trips more enjoyable. Hope you can also make use of it and share it to your family and friends.