Coron: shipwrecks & new friends
Coron was one of those stops that surprised me. i left El Nido VERY reluctantly; had the best last night there and unreal time in general. a 4 hour ferry ride later, with 50% of the passengers projectile vomming (loudly, might i add) i discovered that Coron, unlike El Nido, is NOT set on the beach and does NOT have a stunning cliff face as its backdrop. it’s on the water and is against a mountain but NOT THE SAME AS MY BELOVED EL NIDES. i switched from my first “hostel” to a hotel and wondered how i was gonna kill these 4 days until i was off to Hawaii.
(side note: originally i had wanted to do 2 days in Coron and then a 2-day overnight trek through the rice fields in Banaue. they are said to be the 8th wonder of the world, and if you strung all the rows of crops together they could cover half the globe. it’s a 10 hr overnight bus trip from Manila so i would have been cutting it too close to my flight, but this is DEFS still on the bucket list!!!) i came to Coron strictly for the diving - its waters are home to a bunch of old Japanese shipwrecks and i heard it was the best diving in the Philippines. something cool and different i wanted to check out since i was already in Palawan. then my first day as i was scouting out dive shops i met Mark who went to my high school, gradded 3 years after me. the next day heading off to dive we met Tomas from Sweden and the three of us became bffs. so much for being bored and having to kill time in Coron!!!!
the first day was too choppy to make it to the dive site so we dove in Barracuda Lake - no westsuit cause it was SO SCORCHING HOT from the thermals. bit of a weird dive, as Mark and his remaining 10 bar can attest to. we also went to Kayangan Lake, which has an amazing viewpoint (refer to every Google Image of Coron) and frolicked in the lake. i got the giggles from a guy snorkelling in the cave. like can you even see??? turned into such a fun day.
along with French couple Carol and Mat, we went to dins and the boys drank a lot of beer. i drank a lot of banana daiquiris but i guess when you drink on every day that ends in day your tolerance builds up. anyway their bromance was hilarious, we ended up at the cutest little reggae bar where we played bullshit (i won, fyi) and i swang on the swing as my happiest island girl self.
we did 2 wreck dives the next day which were suuuper cool. you can see the damage from where the bomb hit, but the rest of the ship is pretty in tact. it’s so cool to smeagle in and out of the rooms in the dark. lucky me in the Philippines, my open water 18m certificate is seen as a “light suggestion” cause we went down to 29m. most things in the Philippines are light suggestions, i’m learning: restaurant orders, safety precautions, boat schedules, etc.
went to a strange try-hard hippie bar with some hammocks, bob marley videos, and a sleeping tattoo artist. our last day Mark and i scooted around the northern tip, had some delish pizza (Coron’s italian resto is bomb) and went to the hot springs at night, which are one of 3 saltwater springs in the world. just us and a gazillion locals. crowded but cool. also after i left Coron i went to Manila and had the bessstt Wednesday night with my Motel Mexicola friends! Apollo picked me up and took me for real, delicious Filipino food, and Marco and his other friends met us later for drinks. which turned into more drinks, eating the Filipino delicacy balut - a duck embryo in a shell .. ya that happened.. - and dancing to reggae! you know how usually people are like “ya let me know when you’re in town” but you know you’ll never see them again? these guys are so legit, SO nice and so fun, i wish i lived in the same city as them!! thankful to see the real liveable Manila, otherwise i probably wouldn’t have made it past the sketchy markets by my hotel. if anyone goes to Manila stay at Z Hostel, it’s an unreal location next to all the trendy up-and-coming bars!!
there is SO MUCH left in the Philippines that i want to explore. i heard it’s like a Thailand 30 years ago: pristine, untouched beaches.. off the beaten path.. you get an amazing glimpse of the authentic local life, with the worn-down houses on stilts with their crops and laundry hanging out just outside of the towns. the overwhelming majority of people are still filipinos in the towns i went to. i would recommend this to se asia travelers in a heartbeat - come before tourism ruins it!!
