A Spontaneous Honeymoon

Getting married involves loads and loads of planning, preparing and executing. It's worse when me and my husband had to work our regular jobs until the 28th of December (where in wedding date was December 30). With that, something got sacrificed.

• Church details? Check. 
• Reception details? Check.
• Outfits? Check.
• Honeymoon? [insert any panic curse word here]

I booked our honeymoon ticket a month before the wedding. It was after I innocently asked my boyfriend where would he want to go if given a chance. He would answer Batanes at any given moment, but this time, he said it would be between the Chocolate Hills or Mayon Volcano. Great! Because I still couldn't afford Batanes tickets at that time. The next morning, I searched the internet for the best deal of tickets. January 2 would be the perfect day since we'll be spending the New Year's day with my relatives. That day would also be the craziest peak since people would be travelling back to wherever right after the holidays. So yeah, I got expensive tickets but what the heck, they are totally worth it. They would be my wedding surprise for my husband-to-be. Imagine on our wedding reception, the emcee would give me the mic to announce "Baby, I got us 2 tickets and we're going on a honeymoon!" Well at least that's the plan.

I booked the tickets that same morning. The moment I saw him in the afternoon, my big mouth blurted my own surprise. He was still very happy about it and still applauded me for keeping a secret for few hours. That's the story behind the tickets. Everything ended there. We almost forgot about them due to hectic schedules and crazy crazy planning.

Fast forward to January 1, I found myself printing anything Bohol - related. Yes, printing, as in using actual papers. I am old fashioned like that. My husband was laughing at me for not using my phone in saving such data. After we got the essential, which was how to go to NAIA Terminal 4, we packed our bags and slept.

We arrived at Tagbilaran Airport at 9am in the morning. I instantly got my print outs which totally gave away that we were tourists, err, worse, honeymooners. We were flocked by tour guides, drivers and people working for some hotels. We walked straight ahead, trying our best to ignore them and caught our breath on a small carinderia. After a cigarette and a 2 soft drinks, we braved to hire someone who gave us the cheapest price. Off we went to Panglao Island Nature Resort, and that started our day 1.

I specifically chose this place to jumpstart our vacation because I wanted us to feel like tourists on day 1. The wedding was really wonderful yet very very stressful at the same time. But it's not something a beach and good food wouldn't cure. This resort takes pride on their infinity pools and a white sand beach. It is also famous for its man-made island. Though their beach was kinda average (too much sea weeds, didn't swim), their food made it up for it, it was an experience all by itself. The entrance for the day tour in this resort was 350Php each. 100Php from it was consumable on their resto.

Reasonably priced foods on a very classy in house resto.

One of the two infinity pools and jacuzzi. Aren't they pretty?

Angel Locsin ang peg!

Too bad me and my husband didn't have a decent couple shot since we're too lazy to set up the tripod.

While having our miryenda, we abused the free wifi to scour for affordable hotels. Panglao Island Nature Resort had their famous forest cottages overlooking the beach, but for 8,500 Php per night, so, no thanks. We will be spending most of our time outside the next day anyway so why spend that much, right? Right?

We ended up booking Traver's Pension House in Tagbilaran. I read so many good reviews about it plus it's very affordable considering the number of amenities they offer. What I loved about it was it has a chapel right next to our room. After throwing our stuffs inside the room, we went out again to have dinner and explore the city. That pretty much summarized our day 1. Day 2 will follow next entry.