We saw no other visitor groups during our morning visit to the Cadapdapan rice terraces. The Chocolate Hills of Bohol was the opposite: it was congested, full of visitors – both domestic and international – and the view from the viewing deck turned out to be a little limited. Also, as the wife mused, the hills weren’t brown enough – possibly the weather hadn’t been dry enough to cause the grass on the hills to dry. Still, from what I read on the Wiki page, there are more than 1,700 hills spread across 50 square kilometers, and it certainly looked that way. The hills extend for as far as the eye can see. Most visitors looking to see the hills would go up a flight of stairs – it’s a 3-4 minute climb up with a couple of rest stops of you need them – before reaching a viewing deck that will present you a view of the hills.
Important point to note: drone flying is not allowed off the viewing deck from 8AM onward., I’m guessing because park management doesn’t want drones launching and flying off the deck to impede the enjoyment of others or movement of traffic. That was disappointing but a fact of life. However at our exiting the area, our driver drove us back down to the ground level and showed us a quiet secluded area well away from the deck where he said I could fly. Which I did: and taking also great care to stay well far away from the viewing deck area which was some distance behind us. There was also fair bit of radio interference when flying the drone at ground level: those hills while aren’t massive are essentially still very solid obstacles that are blocking the transmission signals from controller to drone. So, I did a a short flight, didn’t go too high nor too far, and came out of this visit with a couple of short and quick videos of the area to remember.
We didn’t stay long in the area: it was chop chop and we were done in 7 minutes, and headed to our next stop: the Tarsier Sanctuary.