Most of Bohol tour operators will bring tourists to the Loboc Center in time for the Loboc River Cruise with Buffet Lunch. The fee for this buffet lunch is NOT INCLUDED in most tour packages so you have to shell out another P400 per person to enjoy the cruise along the Loboc River as well as the lunch buffet. Estimated travel time to complete the Loboc river cruise is around 2 hours. You don’t need to worry about your driver’s lunch because he will be given free lunch at the center while he waits up for you.
Buffet Lunch selections are mostly Filipino foods like pancit, grilled fish and meats, popular dishes like pinakbet, fruits in season, native kakanins or local delicacies for desert. The cruise is until the mini falls in Busay and then the floating restaurant will go back to the Loboc Center.
Many Filipinos considers the Loboc River Cruise to be among the top tourist activity in the island. Foreigners as well as local tourists will probably find it charming to be serenaded while the dining boats are cruising the calm river. Most days the river waters looks green and beautiful but if you chance upon it during the rainy season, the river water might turn brown and a bit murky after a heavy rainfall.
At the Loboc Center checking out the cruise
One of the many Loboc River Cruise Floating Restaurants
There is an unfinished flyover in the center of Loboc. I’d like to bang my head as I write these lines – I wonder what was going around the minds of the town’s engineers and planners when they were drawing up plans for this flyover???? How could they miss the fact that if the flyover is completed, it will go through the century old Loboc Church is beyond me. This flyover is a testament to stupid engineering.
Anyhow, Loboc offers more than the river cruise as a few kms away from the town center, you can find an adventure area where zipline and cable cars are offered to guests. We were struck by the view of a very wide mountain and a deep valley below where you can see the snaking Loboc river. Entrance is free.
If you want extreme adventure, head to EAT Danao Adventure Park and experience hair raising sports The Plunge, Sui – Slide Zipline, Water Rafting, Rock Climbing and more. We did not went there because Danao is a bit far from Panglao and more importantly, we have limited budget hehehe 
Loboc River bird’s eye view and the cable car
Amazed with the wide mountain!
If you choose not to have lunch at the Loboc River Cruise, you can ask your guide to bring you to the Butterfly Center, it’s also a tourist haven where butterflies abound; they also have a restaurant. Dishes are made from scratch so it may take a while before you are served. Actually, a long while hehheh but the food tasted delicious and worth the wait. As with other restaurants on the tourist’s trail, your guide or driver eats for free. Best thing here is their homemade fruit ice creams!
The Butterfly Center
Experimenting with butterfly wings!
Man-made Forest in Bilar, Bohol
There is a part in Bohol which has also become very popular among tourists on the way to the Chocolate Hills and that is the Man-made Mahogany Forest in the town of Bilar. A good area of this town was planted with mahogany trees, the weather is cool there even on high noon. The trees are planted a few meters apart so when they grow, they will grow straight. It’s a place for pictures especially when you capture light breaking through the leaves, it’ll be simply stunning!
Bilar’s Man-made Forest
There is a lot to see and do in Bohol, no wonder Bohol always makes it to the Top Ten Philippines Destinations!
For more readings on Bohol Island, please check my other Bohol Countryside Tour entries 🙂
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fetus says
April 13, 2011 at 8:44 pmyes, it’s a monument of stupidity – that multi-billion peso unfinished bridge. they even thought of destroying the church!
when i was a kid, at noon, no single ray of sun could penetrate here in the bilar man-made forest.
penfires says
April 13, 2011 at 10:25 pmwow! that must have been a site to behold, thick canopy with hardly any light getting through! 🙂 bilar forest looks awesome today so in its early days it must have been even more beautiful!!!
(i like forest and tress and mountains more than beaches and sand lol, don’t tell my kababayans hahhaha)