Coron, Palawan – the last frontier for travellers….
Speak to any traveller who has spent time in Philippines or to local Filipino’s, and their eyes tend to glaze over when you mention Palawan, and specifically Coron. With overdevelopment having all but destroyed such paradise islands as Boracay, intrepid traveller searching for a more authentic island experience are finding that Palawan offers something closer to what they seek than many other destinations in Philippines. Once they arrive in El Nino and experience the crowds, they often flee to the next available option – Coron – located a 4 hour fast ferry trip from El Nido.
We also fled to Coron on the fast ferry, a few days earlier than planned. We had prebooked inexpensive accommodation for 5 nights in Coron on Booking.com for $10/day at Coron Guapos Guesthouse, and when we decided to go to Coron two days earlier, we had to book at the more expensive Sanho Guesthouse at $36/night. It proved to be a comfortable option, with hot showers and breakfast included. We decided to check out the Coron Guapos guesthouse the day before we were to move there – thank heavens we did. It was not to our liking, mainly because the shared bathrooms were in such a poor state. I checked each of the four cold showers, and not one of them actually worked. A drip of water is a poor excuse for a shower – a handwritten sign directed guests to use a bucket and label as a backup option. Been there, done that. We promptly cancelled our booking on the spot…
Fortunately we were able to rush back to Sanho Guesthouse and book a room for our remaining stay in Coron, which meant paying more than we usually like to pay (we aim at below $30/night), but as it included breakfast we could live with it. With our accommodation sorted out we could focus on enjoying what Coron has to offer in terms of natural beauty. We first booked a group trip which took us to most of the nearby snorkeling spots off Coron island in a single day…It was far better than the group tours in El Nido as there were fewer people at each spot we stopped at. Kayangan Lake was the only crowded spot we visited as our boatmen took us there too late in the day…
Much of the day involved either snorkeling or drifting around a beautiful lagoon. The first lagoon we visited was unique in that it contained a mixture of fresh water and sea water in the area we swam in, so when you looked down into the water everything was blurred as the two types of water could not mix together…Very freaky sensation :). If one dived down for a mere everything was clear again…We just floated around and relaxed in the environment…
I plan to sit an edit a video of the snorkeling we did in Palawan which will show some of the amazing coral and fish we got to see while snorkeling in the area…Editing video is a labour intensive job and will take quite a while so one needs uninterrupted time to do it well…We did manage to shoot some really cool photographs of during our time in Coron which we have shared on FB and Instagram and some of which we also share here. Coron is a very picturesque spot so it is hard not to get cool shots if one has a good eye.
The color of the water is quite striking and adds to the WOW effect when one views the images. Having a small drone also made it possible to get some great aerial shots of the places we visited, even though I am still a novice when it comes to flying a drone, especially over water, where most drone accidents tend to happen…I stand on the beach and nervously fly the drone over the water 🙂 I have just bought the DJI Spark as an upgrade, but have yet to fly it as it involves a bit of a learning curve….the pics here were shot with my little Zerotech Dobby.
Having Akhona as both a travel partner and resident model is of course great for me as a photographer, and has made this trip that much more fun for both of us, as we are constantly looking for photo opportunities to create visual memories of our travels. I find it particularly exciting that often we are the first South African’s to visit a particular spot and capture an amazing image there.
We did two boat tours while in Coron which took in not only snorkeling but also the remote beaches on the small islands of Bulog and Malapascua. On each tour we were joined on our boat by 20 – 30 other travellers and we had a buffet lunch on a beach midway through the day. The lunch on the second tour was very disappointing and offered way too little food for our group of 30 people, to the extent that we stayed hungry for the rest of the trip. As a result, we made a point of visiting the tour company the following day to complain. It turned out that the owner was away, and had left the catering up to the boatmen, who seemed to have pocketed some of the budget for food, resulting in the under catering we experienced. We were refunded. We were refunded P500 each for the inconvenience. We have learned to speak up when we feel we are being ripped off as only then will the situation improve for travellers to come.
During our stay in Coron we also spent time scouring the town for the tastiest food, which is always a challenge for us. On our first night in town we stumbled upon Island Boy Grill, a big barbecue restaurant with live music which turned out to be the most popular restaurant in town. We ate there twice and enjoyed the vibe and the tasty food and iced tea. The decor is eclectic and locally inspired and it was also reasonably priced – which is why it is so popular with travellers. We also enjoyed authentic Italian pizza at Altrove, where we met a British couple who had been on one of our boat tours. The girl wasn’t feeling well, and while her fiancé went in search of medication, she ended up collapsing and we had to jump up and help her…Food poisoning seemed to be the cause. One of the many challenges facing travellers is trying to avoid eating food which is prepared in unhygienic conditions, but often we have had to send both chicken and pork back to the kitchen which is clearly off – and in all cases this was in ‘good’ restaurants, not from a street vendor.
Coron is definitely worth the visit as a contrast to El Nido. It is also quite a busy town as it is bigger than El Nido and has a larger airport with flights to and from Manila, Cebu City and other local destinations, making it a gateway to Palawan for travellers arriving in Manila. For a visit to Coron and El Nido only, it’s the wisest option as it only involves travel by ferry, but we wanted to see Sabang and Port Barton so we flew to Puerto Princesa instead, and travelled overland to El Nido. If we do return to Palawan in the future we will do things differently and rather fly to Coron, and then do a 5 day trip down to El Nido on a boat, stopping over at a few remote islands along the way. That way we will avoid the crowds and get to experience the real Palawan…
