Jan 9-12
Our transfer from Hong Kong to Manila was uneventful; apart from both of us suffering from extreme disorientation each time we needed to exit an MRT (train) station, Hong Kong’s transit system is impressively easy to navigate. We had been concerned about whether or not Cebu Pacific would raise a stink about the weight of my carry-on, since it was significantly overweight due to it holding all of my wedding gear; I had also read a notice saying that there was a 10kg per person baggage limit on flights to Coron, so there were a couple of major concerns about our baggage that we couldn’t get answers to until we got to the airport. The ease with which we made it to the airport (by bus this time, rather than the overpriced and unnecessary Airport Express) and through the check-in process should, in a pessimist’s eyes, have hinted at misadventure to come. My parents raised me as an optimist, though, so the mass of confusion that greeted us upon arrival in Manila was a bit of a shock.
The airport was a veritable sea of people – almost every single seat in the airport (whose air-conditioning system seemed equally overwhelmed by the building’s current population) was filled. The departure screens were about two hours out of date when we arrived, and weren’t updated for another two and a half hours after our arrival. The only updates: delays and cancellations. The only explanation: each flight’s plane had not yet arrived. Strange, no? Boarding counters were swarmed with passengers seeking information, while the PA system droned on unintelligibly about unknown flight numbers with unknown fates; “our apologies” seemed to be the only words to beat the sound barrier caused by the hubbub below the speakers.
As was inevitable, our flight was delayed and then, ultimately, cancelled, since we wouldn’t be abe to land in time to meet the default sunset curfew imposed because of Coron airport’s lack of runway lights. We were shuffled from one luggage belt to a check-in counter to another check-in counter before being loaded onto a bus and carted off to a hotel. There were several upsides to this rather tedious situation: 1) Rich made a friend (of course he did!) in Fernando, a Spanish helicopter pilot working in Borneo; 2) We got given a free one-way flight each (awesome, since we hadn’t yet booked our flight back to Manila!); 3) We got fed dinner and breakfast AND got put up in a very nice hotel (with a NORMAL shower! Yahoo!). We weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere, we knew we were on a flight the next mornig at 6:30, we knew we had transport to the airport, and we got some free stuff out of it. Overall, we did pretty well for a 15-hr overnight “inconvenience.”
Landing in Coron was memorable, and not just because we were quietly celebrating the fact that we’d actually made it there at last: the runway is one of the shortest I’ve ever seen (significantly shorter even than Cornwall Aviation’s landing strip) and, as such, we learned the full power of our plane’s brakes. Our baggage “carousel” was an L-shaped length of foot-high counter; clearly the manual predecessor of the modern electric ones. :)
Coron is a small town full of dive shops, guests houses, restaurants, and island-hopping tour companies. There are a few shops, a nice little market and…. that’s about all. It felt exceptionally touristy and not at all like a place we’d normally hang around, but we were wanted to do a bit of island hopping and an overnight camping trip, so there we were. We ended up at Krystal Lodge, a neat little spot built on planks over the sea, just past a small section of mangrove. Clearly, it was once a larger spot, given the building/wreckage in evidence (it’s almost impossible to tell the difference between the two here), and sure enough, after speaking to Krystal, Rich learned that she used to have five other cottages, but lost them in 2013’s super typhoon. Our room was comfortable; simple, and yet, oddly, it had what appeared to be a bar in it. I wouldn’t learn of it till later, but Rich awoke from a dream about bugs to find a 3-inch long cockroach crawling up his leg while we were sleeping. I don’t know how he managed not to shriek (because that’s definitey what I would’ve done), but he disposed of the creature without even waking me.
We spent our first afternoon exploring the town, hiring a motorbike to exploring the surrounding area, and investigating options for boat trips, which turned out to be a case of “same same.” We ended up at the boat association, which regulates boat fees, and learned that we’d be looking at $100 for the boat, plus food and island accommodation. We also learned that there was a five-day expedition that sails from Coron to El Nido, but costs twice as much and sails through a different group of islands. We spent quite a few hours considering our options and debating the choices quite heavily before deciding to stick with the original plan and agreeing to meet our boat the following morning at 8am.
We met our two crew members the following morning as arranged and one of them accompanied us on a quick market trip before we headed off. We thought he was coming along to advise on quantities or specifics, but it turned out that he spoke about four words of English and was probably just there to make sure we didn’t forget the charcoal. With no idea of what we should be buying, we picked up enough food to feed four of us for several meals – two kilos of rice, a kilo of pork, some mangoes, soy sauce, calamansi (like a miniature orange-fleshed lime), garlic (which I’m pretty sure they don’t know what to do with – it never got used), chillies, tomatoes, six litres of water and three small plastic bags of charcoal so that they’d have something to cook with, plus a litre and a half of water for us to drink.
Our boat was one of the many traditional “bangkas” – motorized outrigger boats that dot the turquoise waters of the seas around the Philippines. While I heard one Filipina compare them to butterflies, I find that it’s more realistic to think more along the lines of ants. There’s a very shallow central hull and two outer “wings” made by bending three bamboo poles outward from each side of the boat and attaching them to a long base pole that runs the length of the boat like an oversized crayon and helps balance the boat in the water, giving it the stability of a much larger vessel. They are usually fitted with a couple of inward-facing benches for passengers, about a third of the way back along the boat, and the captain has a small area about two-thirds of the way down the boat; the rudder is often controlled by a length of bamboo strapped to it. We also had the pleasure of watching our captain get our primitive fuel tank running, using a sort of reverse-syphon: instead of sucking on a tube to create flow, he stuck the tube in the giant fuel-filled water jug, then used his mouth and hand to create a seal over the opening of the jug and blew into the jug, forcing fuel through the pipe and into the motor. And off we went! :P
It was clear very quickly that our purchase of a dry bag was a wise one. We were drenched by spray within ten minutes. I would be sitting on the bench, enjoying sunshine and a daydream, when, with impressive suddenness and force, I would get slammed with what could only be described as an aquatic bitch slap. Then I’d burst out laughing. Fortunately, I never ceased to find it funny, despite it happening at least two dozen times (it was the suddenness with which it always happened that I found so amusing), and I think the boatmen, in turn, found THAT funny because they were always smiling (or maybe they steer the boat into the waves in order to drench clueless tourists – who knows?).
We stopped at Bulog Island for some snorkelling and lunch. The snorkelling was nice – the water here is perfect for cold-water-haters like me and the variety of tropical fish was impressive, but given that the boats pole their way to shore across the reefs, there’s a huge amount of dead coral that rings any touristed island in the Sulu Sea. At any rate, we had fun paddling around the shoreline, taking full advantage of water so salty that buoyancy was never going to be an issue. We got the call for lunch and immediately learned of two key errors: 1) The boys had their own food, meaning we’d bought WAAAAAAAY too much; 2) They also had their own water, meaning we’d bought WAAAAAY too much. I noticed a trend forming. :P
After lunch, we motored over to Banana Island which, just like Bulog Island, boasted a gorgeous shoreline of white sand and palm trees, with the added bonus of a few wicker hammocks strung between the trees. I could see that this was turning out to be a real tough day…. ;) There are half a dozen cottages available for rent at sightly extortionate prices (more than twice the price that we paid onshore), but we picked one out and enjoyed exploring for the rest of the afternoon. We spotted a tidal island just offshore from the deserted end of the beach, so we walked around the shoreline to investigate. Rich wanted to swim over, but the rocks and coral lying just below the water’s surface were sharp and there was a heavy surge, so I bailed on that idea and discovered that the heap of logs right near me was actually a raft that ran straight to the island, tethered to a rope that was tied down on either shore. Perfect! We towed ourselves across like Huck Finn and…. stood there, quite uselessly, once we got to the other side. Turns out there wasn’t a whole lot to see, so we promptly hopped back on our raft and pulled ourselved back across. Talk about big adventure on the high seas.
As the afternoon wore on, we watched somewhat gleefully as the hammocks gradually emptied and the boats pulled away, one by one. When they’d all left, there were about a dozen of us spread out across the long stretch of shoreline. Perfect. Another little walk around a rocky shoreline in the opposite direction led us to some really neat rock formations, the curve of one perhaps suggesting the origin of the island’s name. We quietly basked in a beautiful sunset and then got called for another pork chop and mango feast. Coron officially has the best mangoes I’ve ever tasted. Food-shopping errors aside, those guys grill a mean pork chop and we had an awesome time with them.
After such a peaceful day, it wasn’t difficult to call it a night. Strange how doing nothing but swimming, eating, and taking photographs can make you sleepy, but we went to bed fully expecting to sleep peacefully with the sound of crashing surf quite literally right outside our window.
It was a rude awakening, then, when a series of thumps and crackles woke us in the middle of the night. We clearly had a visitor. It took us three tries before we successfully spotted it, but a rat had not-so-quietly been raiding our supplies. Rich spotted the wrapper of a long-forgotten muesli bar disappearing down the hole surrounding one of the hut’s main frame poles, which then caused him to get up and take stock of our things. Turns out the little bugger made off with our small tube of sunscreen, our small tube of toothpaste, and the muesli bar. We packed up our belongings, zippered bags, and went to bed, cursing our unwelcome companion.
In the morning, we chickled about the ridiculousness of the theft, boarded the boat and headed back to Coron. We had booked a ferry for the following day, and knew that there was nothing of note to capture our interest in the town, so spent a comfortable afternoon at Krystal Lodge, hanging out together, teaching Krystal’s three year-old son how to make faces, and taking photos. Not long before bed, we chatted briefly with another backpacker who had just arrived from El Nido and had horror stories of a soaking-wet, 10-hour ferry journey north from El Nido. We gave him a brief warning about cockroaches (there was now another 3-inch long specimen hanging out in our bathroom), and went to bed feeling unertain about our decision. Turns out, we should’ve been feeling uncertain about the bamboo walls – a known favourite building material of rats. We had another interrupted night as we had to shoo yet another unwanted guest out of our room on a couple of occasions. Yikes.
Grateful for: dry bags and warm breezes
Up next: El Nido
