C O R O N

Gail, my best friend who’s currently based in Sydney told me about her family’s plans to go on a 1 week vacation in April to the Philippines. I then realized that my 6th month was nearing, meaning I can already enjoy my privilege of taking a leave after my probationary assessment. I applied for my 13-day vacation and told our other high school friends so they could clear their schedules. We booked our flights going to Coron nearing the end of March, guessing if we booked it earlier that we’d get cheaper flights but ours wasn’t so bad at 6,000+ PHP/roundtrip tickets. Gail made an online booking at Hop Hostel for three nights, with king size bunk beds to our surprise cause we thought we booked single beds at 3,000+ PHP/each. Though Rusheen already informed us that she has booked us to stay at the Camp Carabao for overnight we just wanted to make sure we had somewhere to stay in case our plans change. I did my own research about Coron, and initially considered doing my first ever dive in the Philippines in the Coron waters but I’m going to say it now – I failed to do so but #noragretz because I was able to dive in Anilao, which will be on another post. So much has happened while I was in the Philippines and I’m so excited to share every bit of it cause not a second went to waste. ♥

Our flight was scheduled on April 26, 10:30 am from Clark International Airport to Busuanga via Philippine Airlines.

To get directly to Clark, we took a shuttle from P2P terminal in TriNoma, near the MRT station at 4:00 am because we didn’t want to risk being stuck in traffic ( at 4:00 am lol we were not always in Manila so it’s impossible to gauge, no judging ☮️☮️☮️ ) We arrived at the airport at 6:00 am and had plenty of time to eat breakfast and take a nap while waiting for boarding. The shuttle ride costs 250 PHP/one way.

The flight was 45 mins like, “ok take off, here’s your snack, we’re landing, enjoy Coron”. Snappy, guys. Snappy. It’s a good thing we called the hostel right before our flight just to make sure if there was a van going to pick us up from the airport directly going to the hostel. And yes, they arranged it! Even though, they’ve mentioned that they will try because some trips are postponed from the town to the airport. [[ We didn’t exactly know why but we’re guessing it’s because some parts of the road were too narrow and to avoid traffic, they control the number of trips per van. (???) But we’re not really sure. ]] Nevertheless, the van was on time and had waited for us. From the airport to the hostel, it’s 150 PHP (standard rate). When we arrived, we made our deposit and all the other formalities you do when you check-in. T_T

Our plan was to go to the Red Carabao office to visit Rusheen, so we just chilled there for a while and discussed our itinerary for the whole trip. For day 1, we had agreed to climb up Mt Tapyas (700 something steps) to see a 360-degree view of the town of Coron, go to the Maniquit Hot Spring and do the Firefly tour posted in our Hostel. I was hesitant to binge eat on all the good food I’m surrounded with because I felt like I’d have a hard time going back to my diet. Well cause RICE = LIFE, I’m doomed. HAHAHA. So Mt. Tapyas was easily a good call because we did sweat a lot. Evident on the pictures below.

View from the top!

Help the locals, buy Buko Ice Candy!!

HS friends forevah!

When we descended, it ended up that only the three of us, Gail, Lesley and I would go to the hot spring. We needed relaxation for a few minutes so we talked to a tricycle driver that could take us there. Actually, I still have his number! So if you need a sure guy to take you wherever around Coron town, just msg me! His name is Mark. Tricycle ride from Mt. Tapyas to the Maquinit Hot spring is 400PHP. Entrance per person is 300 PHP. It was impossible for us to stay longer than 45 minutes. But we were able to relax and enjoy that short time there because we were all stressed with different things. We deserved that.

Hi!

♥

Gail and Leng

When we came back, we decided to postpone joining the Firefly Tour in Hop, because the tour encouraged only who stayed in the hostel and some of our friends booked home stay so we just decided to get isaw and rice for dinner while our other friends, went to eat at the hostel. On one hand, we missed isaw and on the other hand, we didn’t want to spend money on food that only looked good in pictures. LOL. This is where subtly the drinking began. I was drunk to my core and I prefer not telling you about it. Hint: that deposit we talked about before checking in, yup, I got ripped and I know it’s my fault. Somebody stained the blankets with isaw vomit. Yup. Yup. I’m too old for that shit but give me a break, haven’t done that since last year! We met amazing friends that night that we spent the next days with in Camp Carabao ❤