Apo was visible on a 9 o'clock morning--hallelujah!

But just lounging at a resort for a couple of days, no matter if it’s a premium resort, drives me nuts. So on our second day at Pearl Farm, Mia went snorkeling, Pepper vegetated in our room, and I decided to take a short road trip around IGaCos.

Habal-habal drivers are easy to find and rent on the island; just outside the pearly (not really) gates of Pearl Farm, there was a shed where a couple of them were hanging out, waiting for passengers. They are pretty helpful folks. If you haven’t drawn up an itinerary for your road trip yet, they give tips on the island attractions you might want to see and how long the drive would be going back and forth. I wanted very much to get up close with Mount Puting Bato, the highest point in Samal where you can get a view of even mainland Davao, but according to my designated driver Kuya Otol, the trip going inland to the mountain is at least three hours long. Plus, I’m no mountaineer and I wasn’t really prepared to trek on inclined dirt roads that morning. So we settled on going to the Hagimit Falls then the Monfort Bat Cave instead.

Habal-habal is my number one mode-of-transportation of choice

Five minutes after driving away from the slightly bumpy road leading from Pearl Farm, Kuya Otol stopped his motorbike to let me take in this view:

I wish I had a wide-enough vocabulary to name all the different shades of blue in this photo.

I’d like to think that if it weren’t for the foliage, I would have seen the horizon curve ever so slightly, proving that the earth is, indeed, round.

Anyway.

IGaCos’ main road is wide and paved–a great thing. Means of transportation, aside from habal-habals, are small buses and jeepneys. There is hardly any traffic on the road, though. We got to Hagimit Falls in around 15 minutes and after Kuya Otol parked his bike and I paid the P20 entrance fee, we went down a pretty long flight of concrete steps to get to the falls’ source.

The actual falls is a teeny tiny one, but it is enough to keep the whole area cool. Families flock to Hagimit on weekends for some PG-rated fun and visitors can rent huts, tables, and chairs for a small fee. But kids, remember: strictly no diving.

We didn’t stay too long at Hagimit Falls since I wasn’t planning to do some freshwater swimming, so we hopped on the bike to proceed to Barangay Tambo where the Monfort Bat Cave is. The road leading there after a fork on the main highway wasn’t paved so the ride was pretty dusty. It took us about 20 minutes to locate it; Kuya Otol claimed that the entrance route had been changed.

And we should all bow down.

*Because during sunny days, which Davao has a lot of, she is well hidden behind the clouds.

Our first few days were spent in the city, booked at Legaspi Suites. The hotel consists of 20 rooms and is situated within a compound of an old Filipiniana style building. The rooms are surprisingly modern, ours had animal-print blankets and ikea-style nightlights. It strongly reminded me of what Adriatico Circle, Malate back in Manila used to be before the nightlife got the better of them. It’s a very well-kept, pretty compound, and you have your option of room breakfast, or midday meals and coffee at Cusina Selera or the coffee shop within the compound.

Legaspi Suites is located at P. Pelayo St., Davao, Mindanao 8000, Philippines.

We had lunch at Penong’s, the region’s favorite ihaw-ihaw restaurant, where we ordered up several dishes of pork and fish. We tried the local favorite of fish testicles, which tasted more like liver to the rest of us.

After lunch we went around the city, first with a stop at the Davao City museum for a primer on their mixed pot of influences from around the region. Mindanao is known for being the last region standing against colonization, and they are proud of it. It has served them well too in the means of preserving their heritage and culture, even as they finally opened their borders. They have retained the heart of Davao even with the influence of so many other cultures from around and outside of the country.

Commemorative monument: showing unity among the different factions within Davao

Speaking of Davao culture, Davao City has strict littering, smoking and drinking laws. Put trash in its proper place, that’s as straightforward as it goes. Smoking is prohibited from most public places, and liquor sales immediately cease from 2am to 6am. Contrary to the gossip, unless you’re a criminal they will not shoot you on the street for lighting up. Peace and order is the city’s biggest priority, and it has paid off. Davao is a good distance away from the more “exciting” areas of Mindanao, but it has its guard up against any unsavory influences. It lives up to the reputation of being the “Singapore of the Philippines”.

No trip through Davao is complete without a sip of durian coffee, which we had our first taste of at Karlo’s Gourmet at Jack’s Ridge. Jack’s Ridge is also where you can get a fantastic view of Davao and Samar Island.

Me, Pepper, September in front of the Davao Sign at Jack's Ridge

Cup of Durian Coffee

One view of the Peak

We also paid our respects to the Immaculate Child of Jesus Shrine on the way down from Jack’s Ridge. The shrine is a huge area dedicated to the church and retreat houses made in honor of the Immaculate Child of Jesus. The property was developed after the owner dedicated her prayers through the Immaculate Child when she came down with cancer, and was miraculously cured of it. Since then, the Immaculate Child is traditionally visited and prayed to by locals before they leave the region.

Immaculate Child Jesus

Our final stop for the day was at Davao Crocodile Farm. It’s essentially a zoo but it is one of the better kept zoos I’ve seen. The crocodile ponds and tiger pens are made to suit the animals’ territorial needs.

Baby crocs all in a row

A grouchy-looking sea eagle

For dinner, we settled down at Cusina Selera, a Filipino fusion restaurant. which served us their specialty, sinigang and their taking on the crispy pata! We also asked them to toast our Cebu lechon, which made for a good pritson. The pritson + sinigang = crispy sinigang is the ultimate soulfood.

We capped off the evening with lychee martinis and turned in. We did the city, our next stop would be beyond the bounds at Davao del Sur where we’d have a glimpse of village life with the Bagobo tribe.

Crown Regency Fuente’s Sky Adventure consists of the Skywalk, Edgecoaster, and 4D Cinema. We tried the Edgecoaster, which is like a modified roller coaster that goes along the roof of the hotel with the option to “tilt”. We opted not to tilt for most of the ride.

After the edgecoaster, we zipped up and strolled along the top of the building for the skywalk.

Whew!

As soon as I got out of the car, I saw plants. Lots of them. There were plants on the walls, there were flowers, herbs, trees, plants on the trees, plants near cottages, plants on cottages, plants in cottages… Well, you get the idea. It felt like something out of a storybook.

The cottages themselves felt like quaint English cottages you find in the stories, with winding paths lined with flowers going all the way to your door.

A Bohol Bee Farm Cottage

The rooms were nice and cozy. Given that it looked like a cottage in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t expect much, and boy was I surprised. The rooms came with modern amenities like air conditioning, cable television, running hot and cold water, and room service. The beds were nice and comfortable, perfect for plopping down on after a long day’s hike. It was magnificent.

Bohol Bee Farm also has its own restaurant and souvenir shop. If you don’t know what to order, their buffet is actually inexpensive. With rates that go down depending on how many people choose to try it, the buffet is a great way to sample most of the dishes the restaurant has to offer. We thought that the buffet was actually a sampler. So we tried each dish out in order, finishing a serving of it before moving on to the next one. Imagine our surprise then, when our server, seeing an empty dish, comes over and fills it with more pasta. I exclaimed with an “Is this serious?!” while September and Mia were laughing.

Our table overflowed with organic goodness

I highly recommend the Cassava bread served with green tomatoes. The taste suddenly bursts into your mouth, leaving you with this tangy taste. Serving it on the crunchy cassava bread was great. The mixture of sour, sweet, and crunch makes it a very addicting dish.

Their homemade ice cream is also to die for. Aside from the normal flavors, like chocolate and buko, the ice cream also came in malunggay and spicy ginger. Mia had the pleasure of sampling both malunggay and ginger flavors, while I jeered that she was eating frozen Tinola. Her review? She craved for it while we were out, so it must have been excellent.

In the souvenir shop, you can purchase not only their honey, but also their homemade crafts, like woven bags, beaded accessories, and woven home decor.

If I were you, I’d start a bee line to Bohol Bee Farm pronto.

Bohol Bee Farm is located in Panglao Island, Bohol.

(IE8 users can use Bing Maps to know the best way to get there)

But there is more than just sociability and their willingness to feed guests to bursting to Cebu locals. The place is also home to word-class artists and artisans that create products that are hailed all over the world. Below are excerpts from an article I’ve written for The Philippine Star’s YStyle section, printed last April 09, 2009 under the title “In the ‘Bu”, about some of the great souvenir stops that are worth including in your next Cebu trip itinerary:

Cebu is a fascinating mix of the old and the new. Stone churches and infrastructure dating back to the 16th century co-exist with business parks and stretches of relocated highways, and the Cebuanos’ international-caliber talent and creativity are rooted in traditional wisdom and techniques that have been passed down for generations.
Given the richness of what Cebu has to offer to tourists, it’s a disservice to bring home just a measly shirt after a trip to the Queen City of the south. Cebu’s dried mangoes are not its only world-class products—though they are great contenders for the distinction of being the region’s tastiest export. Let yourself be amazed further by Cebu by visiting these stops on your next trip:

Enter the Avatar

The display at Avatar's overruns room are all available for sale at affordable prices.

Upon entrance at Avatar’s first-floor display, any girl would be hard-pressed not to go a little nuts over the amount of accessories available for perusal—and that is just in the overruns room. Accessories may sell easily in the upwards of thousands at the Atelier Avatar boutique in Greenbelt 5, but here in the company’s Style Center in Marigondon, Lapu-Lapu City, a brightly colored geometric-cut resin cocktail ring sells for P100 and a cuff made out of cylindrical pieces strung together in a wave pattern is priced at less than P300.

Cocktail rings

We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, if Kansas were a run-of-the-mill accessory boutique in the middle of Everymall: though the only items for sale to drop-in visitors are the ones in the overruns display room, tourists are welcome to take a look inside the Avatar Style Center’s big showroom, which is a visual feast of earrings, rings, cuffs, bangles, necklaces, and even bags that are ready for presentation in European fashion shows. While the Avatar brand is not that known locally, its accessories have reached the runways of Paris and Milan; in fact, Avatar has won the Etoile de Mode des Stylistes in 2006 in Paris. Avatar products are also sold in department stores and specialty boutiques in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In the showroom, the different lines for the company’s collections for the next fashion season have their own mood boards, ready for their European invasion. As an Avatar employee puts it, “Our target is the international market, not really the domestic one, which is why the brand doesn’t participate in local fashion shows.” Ouch, but true.

Avatar Accessories, Inc. founder and managing director Gil Zaire “Butch” Carungay is the creative source of the company’s myriad of designs. A thing to take note while touring the Avatar Style Center premises is the use of materials not often identified with costume jewelry-making: neon-hued yarn wound tightly over a base material form ethnic-looking necklace strands, rolls of folded colored paper are turned into pendants, and ordinary thread spun into webs dangle from earrings. Of course, there are also the requisite precious stones and Swarovski crystals sourced from Singapore and resin pieces from local suppliers. Each design is realized by hand, crafted meticulously by Avatar’s 300 workers. Fact: the accessories company produces three million dollars’ worth of accessories every 15 days. Avatar Accessories, Inc. is a powerhouse of fashion and money.

Avatar accessories are each made by hand.

Kenneth Cobonpue’s hive
The Yoda. The Hague. The Wave. The Bloom. The Tilt. The Voyager. In the luxury eco-chic design market, these Kenneth Cobonpue designs are already modern classics (pardon the oxymoron).

The Tilt is made from 500 pieces of walnut or mahogany wood cut in four different angles, none of them a right angle.

A tour of the Kenneth Cobonpue brand’s showroom in Cebu City will not result to visitors picking out beautiful and functional pieces for taking or shipping home; the company, which has furnished the Nobu restaurants in New York and Dubai and has graced the inner sanctum of the Jolie-Pitts, has a quite rigorous client profiling process and also has what is rumored to be a six-month long waiting list. It is a global brand, after all, which has been built not just on ingenuity but also on exceptionally high standards. But tourists will definitely go home with dreams of having even just one Cobonpue creation gracing their houses someday. Though the vast production area has ten quality control sections where every single furniture piece goes through, the end results are always deceivingly simple-looking and even transparent, the design flow as organic as the materials made to create them.

Cobonpue has made his initial mark by stretching the possibilities of using rattan in creating furniture. Now, the designer and his progenies—design students from the University of Philippines in Cebu—have experimented with coconut fibers and shavings, paper, microfiber, and bamboo, among others, to create furniture pieces and lighting fixtures. Bringing the designs to fruition are the skilled Cebuano craftsmen in Cobonpue’s workroom, who make each product by hand from start to finish. Fact: world-renowned designer Marcel Wanders, creator of the iconic Knotted Chair, had gone to Cebu specifically to learn about weaving. That is how well-regarded the Cebuano craftsmanship is internationally.

Meticulous care goes in by hand into every piece of Cobonpue furniture.

While guests cannot have their pick of loot from the showroom, they are very much welcome to sit, slouch, and lounge around and get to know themselves how different it is not just to see but to feel a Cobonpue piece. Tours are made by appointment, however, and the Cobonpue team selects the visitors who can enter the premises.

The Dragon’s Tail is a lighting fixture under the Hive line, designed by Luisa delos Santos.

More people will get to see and experience the Cobonpue brand, though, as it has expanded into lighting fixtures with the Hive line and soon, into sustainable lifestyle with Kenneth Cobonpue Energy. An ongoing project is the development of 100 percent sustainable streetlamps made from bamboo, which will be installed first in Panglao and then, we hope, in more cities around the country. There is also the partnership between the Kenneth Cobonpue brand and Lexus Hybrid Living to create a carbon-fiber bamboo car, a development that is sure to excite the ecologically conscious folk.

Profood, pro-food
It’s a taste of the south that is always requested for pasalubong: the chewy tanginess of dried mango.
Profood International Corporation, established in 1978, makes 80 percent of the dried mangoes sold in and out of the Philippines. With quite a number of brands under its name, Profood’s most famous products are the in-demand Philippine Brand and Cebu Brand. Though the company also processes food products from other fruits like pineapple, banana, papaya, guava, coconut, passionfruit, jackfruit, guyabano, lemoncito, and dalandan, their mango products are their biggest draw. Fact: 200 metric tons of mangoes, sourced from Luzon and Bohol, pass through Profood’s production area in a day.

Though no picture-taking is allowed inside the company’s 15-hectare premises in Mabolo, Cebu City, visitors can see for themselves the cleanliness and efficiency instilled into the production process. A look into the main production area where the mangoes are washed, peeled, sliced, syruped, and air- then oven-dried is like looking into an enlarged ant colony: the bright yellows of mango flesh contrast with the cherry red plastic bowls used by the Profood workers, and everyone in every station works in sync with each other, all 1,500 of them in one shift; the peelers can skin a mango within six seconds at a maximum, a feat of human efficiency. Profood is proud to be the only food manufacturing company in Cebu to be open to tours and be transparent with their production processes, a practice that other food companies could well adopt.

To appease the salivation whetted by the sight and smell of ripe mangoes, Profood has its own shop at the first floor of its building where customers can buy their fill of dried mangoes, coconut-and-mango balls, coconut strips, dried guyabano, and the highly recommended dried green mangoes at a fraction of what they would pay at the airport pasalubong kiosks. At around P40 for a 100-gram pack of dried mangoes, these treats make it impossible for a tourist not to hoard bags and bags of them.

Pricey finds
Sure, their price points are friendlier to those with a lot of shopping money: trinkets made out of shells have four-digit price tags while some wooden carvings sell for as much as P15,000. But the Artevalman Handicraft Market in Mandaue City is an ideal stop for visitors who would like to bring home a little bit of the Philippines, from Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao. From the Ifugao bulols to the Cebuano straw hats, elements of both traditional and ethnic Filipino artistry and craftsmanship can be found in this souvenir shop, perfect for those who would like to island-hop around the country but without the time to spare. Those who simply want to look around are also welcome; the merchandise may be pricey, but giving friendly pats to the owners’ two massive but friendly dogs are totally free.

Petting the dogs are absolutely free.

High and dry
A kilo of danggit at the Tabo-an Public Market at the Tres de Abril Street in Cebu City is said to cost as much as P500. Well, given how good it tastes at breakfast, the steep price for this dried fish is worth it. Tabo-an is touted by Cebuanos as the best place to buy danggit, as well as hibe or dried shrimp and dried squid. Bargaining when buying in bulk is encouraged, as well as bringing an extra shirt; the pungent salty scent of all that dried seafood is tenacious enough to accompany you home.

A lot of things smell fishy at Tabo-an Market.

I was pleasantly surprised by how developed Bohol’s become over the last several years. It has flourished well under the administration of outgoing president Gloria Arroyo, I wonder if it’s because of her and her daughter’s scuba diving hobby. Thankfully, for all its development, the waters are still clear. There are plans for bigger, shinier, more sophisticated hotels in the future. While I’m glad that tourism has worked out for Bohol, I hope that it won’t beas overdeveloped and warped as Puerto Galera.

I am glad to have been able to discover the rich cultural and natural history of Bohol through our tour of the countryside. Of all the places we visited in Bohol, I do want a closer look at the churches. I hope to be back one day for bisita iglesia, Bohol is an idyllic place for it with over several churches that have risen and even survived the Spanish colonial era.

One church we visited is Baclayon’s Church of the Immaculate Concepcion, possible one of the best preserved old churches in the Philippines. The walls are painted with egg whites, and their museum contains most of the old artifacts used by the Spanish priests that were used in the area.

Baclayon Church exterior. On the first post after the bell tower is the miracle silhouette of Padre Pio of Pietrelcino.

Of course, we were not allowed to take photos of the museum artifacts. Among their exhibits is the Mother Mary used in procession, which takes 30 strong men to carry, and the old books that contain the island’s census.

You can take pictures of the church itself, but they have a strict dress code: shorts and sleeveless shirts are not allowed. The attendant may provide girls with sarongs and wraps to cover up if need be, at no extra charge.

The interiors of the church include tiles imported from Mexico during the Spanish colonial period, and the original pulpit used by the friars.

Whether you’re religious or not, the whole structure is very quaint. It’s also amazing at how it continues to work within the same walls it was built with, and even manages to give room to a municipal school.

The convent is in need of a new annex so they can give more room to their museum. They are open to donations for help with its construction, and you can also track its ongoing progress over at their multiply site.

Extra incentive: for every new church you step into, give a candle-lit offering, you get a wish! Candles go for P20 per wick, and each color corresponds to a particular petitions.

The church is testament to a part of our heritage as Filipino. Feel free to give it a visit, treasure the experience, feel free to leave a coin or two. Ever little coin counts.