Market · Bohol

Tagbilaran Public Market, Tagbilaran City

Skip the resort breakfast just once and head to Tagbilaran's sprawling public market at dawn, where the real Bohol — salt-crusted fishermen, pyramids of calamansi, smoke-blackened pots of goto — reveals itself in glorious, fragrant chaos.

What to seek out

The wet market section opens around 4 a.m. and peaks by 7 a.m.; look for danggit (sun-dried rabbitfish), Bohol's most famous export, sold in flat golden fans by the kilo. It's the best souvenir you can eat on the plane home.

Head to the dry goods section for locally made peanut kisses (a Bohol delicacy — tiny, crumbly peanut-butter sweets), otap biscuits from nearby Cebu, and woven buri-palm baskets crafted in the interior barangays.

Eating at the market

The carinderia row on the market's eastern edge serves steaming bowls of goto (rice porridge with tripe) and sinuglaw (grilled pork with raw fish ceviche) for under PHP 80 a plate — this is where city workers eat breakfast, which is the best quality guarantee there is.

Look for stalls selling sikwate, a thick, grainy native chocolate drink made from tablea cacao tablets dissolved in hot water. It is nothing like hot chocolate from a packet and everything like what hot chocolate should be.