The viewing deck
Hills to the horizon.
Vyacheslav Argenberg — CC BY 4.0 · Philip Nalangan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vyacheslav Argenberg — CC BY 4.0 · Wolfgang Hägele — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Philip Nalangan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Vyacheslav Argenberg — CC BY 4.0
The best-known natural sight in the Philippines: more than 1,260 near-identical conical hills spread over more than fifty square kilometres of central Bohol, as if a hand had set them out across the plain. Green grass covers them most of the year, then dries in the dry season and turns brown, so they look like scattered chocolates, hence the name. The hills are grass-covered limestone, most of them thirty to fifty metres high and the tallest about 120 metres. They formed over hundreds of thousands of years when an old seabed was lifted above sea level and then carved by rain and rivers. They are a national geological monument and appear on Bohol's flag and seal. The best place to see them is the Chocolate Hills Complex in the town of Carmen, where you climb 214 steps to a viewing deck on top of one of the hills. From there the hills stretch in every direction to the horizon, with rice fields between them. Come early in the morning, as the deck is exposed and the heat builds quickly, and the morning light is better. To see them brown, visit late in the dry season, around March to May.
Hills to the horizon.
Late in the dry months.
Between the cones.
Chocolate Hills Complex, Carmen, central Bohol; about an hour and a half by road from Tagbilaran and Panglao
Late in the dry season, around March to May, when the grass dries. The rest of the year they are green, and lovely either way.