Biyahe Baclayon traveller reviews at TripAdvisor

Pamilacan island (Photo: InfoWise101.com)

The town's flagship Biyahe Baclayon tourism program had great raving reviews from travellers at the TripAdvisor website. The website features reviews and advice on hotels, resorts, flights, holiday rentals, holiday packages, travel guides, and lots more.

Biyahe Baclayon is composed of three tours designed for visitors who want to explore Baclayon's natural wonders and heritage and cultural sites:

• Heritage Walk aims to promote Baclayon's culture by bringing visitors to the town's delicacy shops that sell unique Baclayon food such as broas (lady fingers), tableyas (local chocolate tablets) and ube kinampay (local root crop), and to workshops where crafts and souvenir items are designed and manufactured.
• Adventure Trail covers almost the entire town of Baclayon. It includes hiking trails and trails for mountain bikes, dirt bikes and quads. The routes have been designed to pass by lakes, caves, springs and deep sinkholes. Several stops and points along the trail offer panoramic views of the town. Aside from these trails, there is a plan to offer kayaking in the lakes and to install zip lines for extreme adventurers.
• Whale/dolphin watching and Pamilacan island tour involves an early morning boat ride from Baclayon town centre to the island of Pamilacan. The body of water between Baclayon and Pamilacan is frequented by butandings (whale sharks), dolphins and manta rays. Upon reaching Pamilacan, guest may opt to visit diving sites, swim in the beach or have a massage from the women members of the local cooperative.

If you want to know what travellers had said about Biyahe Baclayon check out TripAdvisor's website.

Ancestral houses

Living in history: Baclayon residents in Bohol band together to save the town’s ancestral houses*

Written by Marianne Tocmo (Business Mirror)
Saturday, 19 June 2010 17:30

Baclayon, in the eastern part of Bohol, is the first municipality established by the Spaniards where one can find the historic Baclayon Church, as well as many ancestral houses. Originally called Bacayan—because travelers used to detour (bacay) around a rocky cliff along the shore to avoid going over the top of the cliff—the town was founded in 1595 by two Jesuit priests, Fr. Juan de Torres and Fr. Gabriel Sanchez, who also built a stone church, which is considered the oldest stone church in the country.

This sense of history isn’t lost on the town’s residents, who have formed a neighborhood organization, the Baclayon Ancestral Homes Association (Bahandi), which organizes various cultural events advocating the preservation of historical buildings in Baclayon. The group has found a supporter in philanthropist Bea Zobel de Ayala Jr. through the Ayala Foundation, which has helped mount these cultural events from traditional singing contests to fiestas.

BAHANDI

The Bahandi is a neighborhood organization known as the Baclayon Ancestral Homes Association. The association is composed of home-owners of Spanish colonial houses in Baclayon who banded together to spare their homes from demolition in a province-wide road-widening project sometime in 2002.

In Visayan, the local dialect, the word “Bahandi” means “treasure”. There are over 67 ancestral houses in Baclayon and some have offered their homes to the public as “homestays” where guests can avail of bed and breakfast for a day or longer.

Ancestral houses, some constructed as early as 1853, are within walking distance of each other and the Baclayon Church. The “homestay” program adopted by the owners help them to earn their keep which is generally geared towards the preservation of these heritage homes.

The homestay program seeks to provide visitors with accommodations and food; a place where one can work and live with a Boholano family and get to know firsthand the Boholano lifestyle and culture. Likewise, with foreign visitors, Boholanos can learn about foreign culture and form international friendships.

Read more @ bohol-philippines.com

Staying in Baclayon

Stay in Baclayon if you are visiting Bohol.

If you are planning to go to Bohol and is looking for alternative to Tagbilaran and Panglao, then choose Baclayon.

Still quite a quaint old town, Baclayon is rich in history, being the first town established by the Spanish in Bohol.

Homestay

Some of the heritage houses found in Poblacion, which dates back to the Spanish colonial period, are open to visitors as homestays.

According to AllWords.com, a homestay is a "house primarily as the residence of the owner but with the business of accommodating paying guests."

Owners of these heritage houses have formed an organisation, the Baclayon Ancestral Homes Association, which is also known as Bahandi (Visayan word for treasure). Some member houses are open as homestays.

Hotel and Resort

If, however, you are after a more modern and pampering accommodation, there are a few hotels and resorts I have come across in the worldwide web.

A high end hotel resort is located in barangay Laya, the Peacock Garden Luxury Resort and Spa.

Also in Laya is the Bohol Coconut Palms Resort, which is more affordable by most tourists.

And if privacy is more to your liking, then head on to Baclayon Bed and Breakfast in barangay Guiwanon.

Labels

I will write about these tourist accommodations in Baclayon in future blogposts. I will create labels for them - Homestay and Hotel and Resort, for ease of reference.

A typical day in Baclayon

Continuing my account of our stay in Baclayon, while memories are still fresh in my mind …

Our homestay, owned by Trini and Dan Dawson, has a beautiful garden. What a surprise when Maylene came into the kitchen with bunches of bananas and a pineapple - all from the garden! Trevor spotted a beetle, a very small one so it was quite difficult to take a photo (above). I must say that it is probably the most colorful beetle I’ve ever seen.

One evening, I managed to take another photo of the tuko (spotted gecko). This one probably measures at least a foot long. Trevor and I happen to like house lizards a lot and we really love the sounds that they make, for example the “tu-tu-tu-tu — tuko, tuko, tuko…” of the tuko and the “tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk” of the smaller house lizard, so we don’t really mind having them around.

Here is the Baclayon Municipal Hall which we pass each day when we go to the baluarte. It is quite a lovely little building. Behind it is the health center, a small DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) building, and the municipal hall extension further back. There are also rest houses being constructed in the area. According to our friend Kimo from Pamilacan Island, the rest houses are especially for children from Pamilacan Island who go to the mainland (Baclayon town) school and get stranded on the mainland in the event of typhoon or other causes.

Morning of Baclayon Market Day (Wednesday), the quiet market is transformed into a lively atmosphere where all sorts of goods are sold - from vegetables, fish and meat, to clothes, jewelry and shoes. Outside near the creek are people buying and selling piglets and chickens.


Read more at Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Feeling at home in Baclayon

We were met with lousy weather when our plane touched down in Tagbilaran city, the capital of Bohol. By the time we retrieved our luggage, the rains were coming down hard and I was sticky from the humidity. I started to fret that this would ruin our weekend, but quickly resolved to make the most of it. It was just rain, after all, it doesn’t bother me much. Two years in London had taken care of that.

My friend’s uncle kindly arranged for us to be picked-up at the airport and dropped-off at the Bohol Narra Homestay in the town of Baclayon, some 10 minutes from the capital. We opted for a place on the mainland instead of on Panglao island because of the nature of our trip (our main objective was to do a heritage homes/historic churches tour). The homestay was recommended by my friends who are getting married in Bohol in September. This is where they stay each time they come over to take care of wedding preparations so I knew it was clean and decent at the very least.

Clean and decent, it sure was. But more than that, our hosts were a very pleasant bunch! The rooms they rent out are separate from the main house within the family compound which is located by along the national road with a mangrove for a backyard. I’ve never been a guest at a homestay before and I have to say that it made our trip even more special.

Read more at Ramblings from a Gypsy soul