100 days in Southeast Asia | Part 9 | Philippines: Coron & Manila

Coron 

We decided to splurge a bit and visit the famous Coron island and I can say that you will enjoy snorkeling there, but you will love if you can dive. Since there’s a huge diversity of diving sites. But there are also many sites in El Nido which is quite good too I’ve heard.

I actually heard from 2 girls that did a diving tour in El Nido and also in Coron and for some reason they found El Nido a bit better… But I guess it is their opinion haha I can’t say as I don’t dive, unfortunately.

  

But one thing I noticed when snorkeling in Coron, were all the many bleached corals, quite sad to see it so lifeless, but still could see some nice colourful ones.

For me the winner is still Port Barton as we didn’t see much bleached corals.

Oh...This is another thing you should do that I haven’t mentioned yet. If you enjoy swimming and snorkeling and wish to dive, the Philippines is probably one of the best places to learn since is much cheaper and the diversity is huge. 

I would do it in Moalboal, there are plenty of options and it is such a cool place to spend some time! 

 

Anyway, back to Coron… we arrived in Coron pier and decided to walk to town since it wasn’t super far and tuktuk drivers were charging 3x the price to take us to town haha…

The town is not the nicest, don’t expect anything similar to El Nido!! I knew it already so I wasn’t disappointed, however I know a lot of people that were quite disappointed when they arrived. Basically Coron Island and the other islands around it are beautiful, which you have to go on a boat tour to see it... but Coron Town is not that nice, you can still spend 2 nights there I guess and enjoy the little things to do around (like us).

Our experience was great tho, we spent 2 nights in Coron Town, at Luis Bay Travellers Lodge, quite good, clean and spacious rooms. We paid about $20aud per night.

The location is quite good as you can just walk up to the lookout of the Coron sign and also to the pier where the boat tour starts.

   

We did the Ultimate Boat Tour B or C I cannot remember at the moment but it was pretty good except 2 islands which I didn’t mind not seeing it. 

We also went up walking to the top of the hill where you have a nice lookout where the Coron sign is located. Specially for sunset... it was a bit overcast the day we went up there hehe but it was still lovely.

  

Lookout from Coron Sign

We rented a motorbike the other day and went exploring towards the Hot Springs, that we enjoyed since it was raining so the hot water went quite well with it. 

Then since we already had the motorbike, we decided to go up to Busuanga with the bike and our backpacks to spend 2 nights there and then we explored a bit more the north of the island. 

We stopped by Busuanga Bay Lodge for dinner and drink specials which was just fantastic! 

Ok, we didn’t intentionally stop there… haha It was actually by accident that we found this place (BBL). 

We were heading towards Conception, and then a storm was about to hit, the wind was CRAZY strong and we had nowhere to go but this resort BBL haha… 

We decided just to go in and see how expensive were rooms and just wait for the storm to stop…

  

BBL

Then it was obviously super expensive hahah don’t think I could ever afford it in my life hahaha But the restaurant is awesome and then we went to the restaurant downstairs and had dinner and drinks! Pretty damn good happy hour!! Affordable prices YASSS

Then we followed to this town called Conception since it was kinda nearby and it was night time we didn’t want to keep riding in the dark. 

Our room window and balcony

So we found a spot to spend the 2 nights called Pier House Inn, waterfront. It wasn’t too bad for the price ($15aud)and had nice views of the water.

 

The following day we spent riding the bike. We went to this beach called Alam Indah but we didn’t stay as it was quite expensive to spend the day. 

You can either pay a bit less to spend the day only, our some extra and you have also lunch included for the price. 

But apparently it needs to be booked in advance as they use fresh ingredients and so on…

So we went to Ocam Ocam beach instead, which was a great and sweet ride and it is also a lovely village with kind locals.

If we knew they had beach shacks there, we would have brought our backpacks and stayed there for the night!

 

Ocam Ocam

We also went to the Sanctuary Treehouse which they have this famous Hobbit Hole room which was fun to see and we then went to conception falls, a pretty little fall but nothing too special about it. 

At night drinks with the expats in Conception, swedish Mike from Ann and Mike’s restaurant guesthouse (they have been living there for 11 years!) and the british dive instructors from the Pirate Divers. Really nice people.

 

Under the beach shack at Ocam Ocam

The following day we went early back to Coron town to drop off our motorbike and catch the van to the airport. 

Next stop Manila.

Manila

Holly shit. I have never seen such traffic jam in my life! And you see, I am from Sao Paulo in Brazil which has pretty fkd up traffic! We spent over 2hr drive to go 10km to our hotel Makati Riverside Inn where we would spend 1 night before leaving the country. Thankfully we order a Grab which is the same as Uber and paid fixed price. :S

The city is so huge and developed, it was amazing to see just a tiny bit of it, we went to the Salcedo Saturday market for lunch, yum so much good food, and then a shopping mall as it started pouring rain because of the typhoon arriving in the area and when it stopped we just walked around basically.

Jeepney in Manila

Since the typhoon was coming through, it restricted us from doing much more than that.

And this was our time in the Philippines, remembering that I got 2 months visa but Viv only got 1 so we had to leave the country HAHA fail.

Then, instead of going back home, we decided that our adventure continues in Vietnam!