We arrived in Bohol by ferry after a night in nothing-to-write-home-about Cebu City. Although we'd be exploring Bohol Island, we opted to stay on Panglao, one of over 70 nearby smaller islands. 

Panglao is most famous for Alona Beach, a hoppin' strip where we spent nearly every afternoon and night, drinking beers at reggae bars and eating taco after taco at one of the many local restaurants. (Are tacos a Philippine food? Probably not. Did we care? Definitely not.)

Cold beers and live music on the beach... never bad. Plus, there were more puppies (what's with the Philippines and puppies everywhere? I do not hate it.) and adorable kids goofing around on the beach. 

From Alona Beach, we coordinated our day trip to Oslob to swim with whale sharks, which you can read about here.  

For one action-packed day, we hired a driver to bring us to all of Bohol's famous sightseeing attractions. We fought through throngs of tourists at the iconic Chocolate Hills, approximately 1,200 symmetrical rock mounds nicknamed "chocolate" for their brown color during the Philippines' dry season. As you can see, when we visited, they were mostly green, but still beautiful! 

Thankfully, our driver Eric took us far from tourists after that and we were able to see workers in rice fields the most brilliant shade of green. In the sunlight, the fields were nearly neon, that's how bright green it was.

We zipped across a line traversing a half-kilometer gap between mountains, looking straight down at the rocky river 200 m below. We stumbled across a rickety bamboo bridge before stopping to see butterflies and moths (that one's a letdown - skip it!).  For lunch, we partook in a buffet of Philippine foods served on a slow moving riverboat. 

The highlight of the day was the meatball monkeys, Bohol's beloved Tarsiers, which are literally no bigger than a man's fist with eyes the size of quarters. Although a few would have easily fit in my pack, unfortunately security was pretty tight and we had to leave them behind in the Tarsier Sanctuary. We'll come back for you, tiny monkeys!! 

We spent one more night in Manila before it was time to say goodbye to Andy (finally! just kidding, we love you) and fly to a faraway corner of the South Pacific.