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Actually, this voyage could have ended up without me in the line-up. Our instructor moved our exam from May 22, Thursday to May 23, Friday. Our trip is scheduled to commence on early morning of May 24, Friday―which happened to be Tracy McGrady's birthday. Our exam, as always, is on a night schedule. How can I possibly leave from Los Baños to Bacoor after exam (that is, about 8:00 PM) when the final journey of the van leading to Molino, Bacoor is 9:00 PM at Metropolis Star Alabang? Of course, I will expend more than one hour in bus trip from Los Baños to Alabang, Muntinlupa City.
Well, the preceding paragraph is just nonsense because I was able to join the trip. I pleaded for my instructor via text (she used Chikka in spreading the rescheduling of exam) to just take an advance exam on Thursday. Viola, she accepted my wish and took the exam in the Engineering Science Department faculty room for five hours. That's how I was able to join, successfully, the trip.
My last visit to our relatives in Cebu was in 1995. I'm six years old then going seven.To calculate, that's 13 years. That is why, perhaps, many of the people there missed me. This is not self-proclaimed but my mother told me after their last usual visitation there (the last one in December with my elder sister). Of course, I missed the place―until today.
So we wake up at 3:00 AM of Friday preparing for our flight. We left our house at 
4:15 AM. We're brought at the domestic airport by kuya Sonny, our car's "entrustee". Our scheduled flight for Cebu Pacific is 6:50 AM but, unfortunately, got delayed and further adjusted to 7:45 AM―so we waited for about one hour in that 'undermaintained' airport (in fairness, I like their comfort room). Just for the record, this is my first time boarding an airplane IN ACTION with my head conscious of it. That means, I was still an innocent baby in my first flight. On board, I am somehow afraid.¹ Nevertheless, everything had gone fine. While about 13,000 feet above ground (my body chilled when the pilot used the unit feet in his announcement. Hey, we're metric-system-country!), maybe flying past the island of Marinduque, we got a distant look of Mt. Mayon. After about 55 minutes above ground, we landed at Mactan-Cebu International Airport in the island of Mactan. (We have no photograph of the first five hours of our journey for our camera's loaded in one of our bag sent to the baggage area.) My tito Ramon, with his borrowed small pick-up truck, together with tito Chris and tito Noel, picked us up at
the airport and lead us to one of Cebu City's pier―my parents planned to go first to Bohol and stay there for two days. Some of our baggage were sent to our lola's house in Talisay City, Cebu by tito Ramon while tito Noel and tito Chris jumped on our wagon. We rode Weesam Express, a fast seacraft company with Cebu-Bohol-Cebu route, going to port of Tagbilaran at Tagbilaran City, Bohol. After about one hour and 54 minutes, I finally got a glimpse of the quiet city of Tagbilaran (in all fairness, their pier is clean). There we're met by kuya Sherwin, a tourist driver, and rode his old Mitsubishi L300. Kuya Sherwin had found better alternative (meaning cheaper) in our accommodation in Bohol.² We ate at a restaurant [there] specializing the pecho part of a chicken. Man, the food there's so great! After filling our empty stomach, we then got on a one-hour trip to Panglao Island. Panglao Island is actually just a meter away from the island of Bohol. We did not stayed at Bohol Beach Club―as what my parents planned―but at Dimaluan Beach Resort: a small beach resort sandwiched by Bohol Beach Club and Panglao's
public resort. The place is actually nice with clean shower rooms. Right before my eyes is the famed beach of Panglao which sands as white as an elephant's tusk and actually powdery. I did not threw myself directly at the sea like an overexcited child but laid my sleepy body to bed. By 4:30 PM, I decided to take a walk with my tito Chris, Mama and Alissa at Bohol Beach Club's long shoreline and took some photographs. After that brisk stroll, I dived myself to the shallow sea. I've been about a hundred meters or so away from the shoreline but the water level has not reached my nape. The dark part of the water is actually rocks covered by sea grasses and thrived by sea animals like starfishes, colorful fishes, among others. I loved staying there for the water [there] is rather warm and that the bed of sea grasses was comforting the palms of my feet. I left the sea, with regret, by 6:30 PM carrying different colored starfishes. At night, our dinner were provided by a nearby carinderia and, of course, they're extremely delicious! I slept early for my body's still sleepy. By 7:30 AM, Sunday, we left the beach resort and took our breakfast at a carinderia. So began our quest to see all Bohol's famed attractions.³
We first visited the Hinagdanan Cave still at Panglao island―it's hinagdanan because it's discoverer/s used a ladder, hagdan in Filipino, to explore the farm's underneath teemed with sparrows. It is an underground cave which above it is the owner's land (yes, the land was private but open to visitors) filled with souvenir stores. The single-cavity cave is large and not well-lit. The water's deepest point is about 12 feet (feet again). We did not spent much time under for there's nothing more to see so we headed our way back again to Bohol 'mainland'. Kuya Sherwin and the rest of the "adult's club" in the van decided to visit first the world-famous Chocolate Hills in the municipality of Carmen. One thing that I like about Bohol is that the place's clean. It is very much evident with the environs of their roads. On our way to Carmen, we passed by the beautiful man-made forest dominated by mangroves and other dipterocarp trees. It's such a magnificent scenery with its forest floor carpeted with dry leaves. The forest's road section is about five or six kilometers―enough for your 
jaw-dropped mouth to dry while your nose's flat on the window glass. While traversing municipalities after municipalities, we noticed that small hills bound the road's two sides. Some of the hills are resided; some are irregular while some are cup-like. These hills "float" on the sea of farmlands and "coastlined" by trees and bamboos. Instinct told us that these can be part of complex system of hills comprising the Chocolate Hills but definitely not those famously photographed. My scientific guess, at that moment, could be that these are same hills as that of the Chocolates Hills but not had sufficiently formed so as to have significant height and form to be noticed [of]. Hills after hills, the shape has become rather familiar; kilometers of roads had gone and some hills have had considerable high height and taken on the form of a cup. At last, these are the famed Chocolate Hills as viewed at approximately sea-level. We then made a right turn and climbed our way to a high hill (of course, with road). On top of it are flocking vans and buses 
and, of course, tourists. We unloaded ourselves on the van and climbed the stairs leading to better views of Bohol's Chocolate Hills. There, right before our eyes, is the view that we only able to see at a black-and-white photograph of our school textbooks. There, in front of us, is a natural formation that has high chance of getting included at the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Maybe it will be better to just feast [your] eye to the pictures I provided. After hours of non-stop viewing such spectacular scenery, we continued our journey of witnessing Bohol's attractions. Our next stop is seeing personally the tarsiers. They're cute, really. Alas, I did not liked the place where they're "displayed". Just next to it is the river cruise where you eat all the foods that you can for 350 pesos. However, we skipped it because we might get late for our 4:00 PM return to Cebu. Sayang. We drove our way back to Tagbilaran City and visited an ancestral house. It was owned by Clarin family―a rather political family. Its ground level's been converted to a restaurant where we ate our lunch. Unluckily, 
that was one heck of a lunch. We're served with cold food and cold rice. Anyway, it's still delicious. Hehe. Our last sight-seeing would have been in Albuquerque, Bohol where the largest snake in captivity in the Philippines, Prony, a reticulated python, can be found.
You see, we did not really toured Bohol. Time had us in pressure. By 4:10 PM, We left Bohol tired but happy and contented. Hehe.
The next part will be our return to Cebu where we spent our remaining four days.
Alright, here's my bonus picture: 
Photo captions:
Image 1: Bohol poster art taken from the entrance of museum of Baclayon Church.
Image 2: Panglao Beach.
Image 3: Departing from Mactan-Cebu International Airport. We're sitting behind the pick-up. Persons were (from left to right):
Adrianne, tito Noel, tito Chris, and my Father.
Image 4: One of very good road of Cebu.
Image 5: The Marcelo B. Fernan Bridge connecting Mactan Island to Cebu Island.
Image 6: The clean port of Tagbilaran welcoming tourists.
Image 7: Dimaluan Beach Resort cottages.
Image 8: Bohol Beach Club.
Image 9: A restaurant at Tagbilaran City.
Image 10: The manmade forest.
Image 11: World-famous Chocolate Hills.
To see more of my pictures, visit my Bohol and Cebu pictures at Webshots.
I am listening to Michael Jackson's HIStory album and Susumu Hirasawa's Songs Against the Carnage album while writing this blog.
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¹ I admit, the roller coaster at Enchanted Kingdom, the Space Shuttle, gave me slight phobia to anything that rapidly descend or, sometimes, ascend (that is why I still have
sense of nervousness whenever boarding an elevator―especially the fast one).
² We're originally reserved in Bohol Beach Club but kuya Sherwin found a "better" alternative. With that, we landed at Dimaluan Beach Resort just beside Bohol Beach Club.
³ Not all, actually. We've allotted just eight hours for our Bohol trip because our real destination is Cebu―we're going to visit our relatives there.
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