Coron, which is in the archipelago province of Palawan in Western Philippines is known for its natural beauty. We planned to spend two days doing two different boat tours, with Coron Town as the jump off point. We were going to be treated to some lovely beaches and lakes. Our island hopping adventure begins today!

Goodbye Goldberry suites, we hardly got to know ya. It was such a nice large room with a really comfortable bed too. I had a pretty good sleep. Luckily for us, we were able to take the free shuttle back to the airport. Now, you may be wondering why we only spent one night in Cebu. The main reason for this is we thought we were going to spend some time in Cebu, but then we culled it but not before buying plane tickets. The other reason was, well there just weren’t that many flights between Legazpi and Palawan anyway, so going via Cebu was not an awful idea, despite needing to eventually go to Bohol, which is quite close to Cebu. But overall, this was not great logistics on our part.

At the airport Ippy found a bougie souvenir store called Kultura and bought some bougie Calamansi marmalade (which came in quite a small jar!) and some Dulce de Coco, a coconut jam. The latter came in a more acceptable size. There was also a store selling lechon, but it was too early to have any.

We were flying Sunlight Air to Coron on another ATR 72 turboprop, same as last night. It seemed like all the passengers were foreigners. It was a full service, where we were all served banana chips, mango juice and water. It better be for the price we were paying! Unforunately the landing was a little bumpy.

Francisco B. Reyes Airport was very small; it was basically a glorified shack. At the exit, there was a table set up where everyone was required to pay an airport terminal tax.

Upon exiting we looked for a van to take us to Charms hotel, our accommodation. To my surprise, there was a man with a clipboard who had my name marked against our hotel name somehow. I suppose that makes things a lot easier! We agreed to take the van he offered to go to our accomodation, Charms Hotel. It took quite a while to get to our accommodation as the driver was not the greatest at figuring out logistics.

Coron Town was basically on a large hill, serviced by one main road that ran down towards the pier, where the the hustle and bustle was. We were taken halfway down the hill, where a lucky couple got out. Charms hotel was located at the top of the hill (basically where the McDonald’s was rolls eyes), but the driver opted to drive all the way out of town, to drop off a few more people before finally heading towards Charms.

Prince Wonton

After getting to the hotel, we required lunch, so we opted to walk to a wonton restaurant where they made their own wontons. It was a very simple looking shop, but that did not mean it was cheap. The wontons were pretty good, although it was not a big serving. I had wontons with dry noodle (PHP179) whilst Ippy had wonton soup noodle (PHP169). The soup was on point, said Ippy. It was a nice, light, traditional broth. Ippy enjoyed the local touch, however - our food was served with a side of calamansi! We also got a side of 4 siu mai, which was ok, even the local frozen stuff back home might’ve been better. Apparently the owner of the restaurant was from Hong Kong but it was a far cry from the real deal, unfortunately.

After lunch, we walked around town a bit. Coron town was a bit of a dusty, noisy town, begging for a glow up. Everything seemed to be clustered around the main road and near the port.

Ippy had grazed her finger gripping the ATV handles too tightly, so we needed to go to a pharmacy to buy some bandaids. This would’ve been a lot easier in Cebu City or Legazpi… The pharmacies here in Coron were very bare bones. Eventually, she had to settle for some basic bandaids that weren’t really water resistent.

Mount Tapyas

We then went to go climb Mount Tapyas to catch the sunset. This hill overlooks the town of Coron, promising a spectacular view. There was also a massive Coron sign, like the Hollywood sign in California. There were 720 steps to the top, there were lots of people and it was excessively hot. We had to preserve water for the journey because we didn’t want to carry too much.

(Best viewed on desktop and in full screen mode)

The sunset was ok from the top; there were lots of cloud coverage near the horizon but fortunately they did not cover the sun fully. We stayed there for a while, overhearing other tourists’ conversations. There was a girl recalling that she and her friend were on a boat tour when her friend “fell” into the engine and cut her foot pretty badly. The friend had to go to the hospital and she had to go to the pharmacy with a list of things the Doctor had told her to purchase.

After getting down the mountain we had our first Halo Halo (PHP180) at Tres Marias. It was ok, but they were a bit stingey with the ice cream. It probably wasn’t the best rendition.

Then it was time to go to JY Tours to buy two tickets for the “Island Escapades” tour. Despite paying in cash, there was no real bargaining to be had. They weren’t bothered if you weren’t happy with the price. We paid PHP 3400 total for two. We were unsure if we would book the next tour with JY or not. I’m sure we may have been able to swing a bit of a discount if we did.

Umamikusina Restaurant

For dinner we poured over our phones, trying to find something that wasn’t too expensive and Filipino. We settled for a restaurant just off the main road, near the heart of town. It was a basic looking restaurant, and it offered no respite from the humidity. But it would have to do.

The service was slow at Umamikusina, but we were in no hurry. It was just that it was so hot! The restaurant had some fans scattered around the place and Ippy decided to stand in front of one whilst we waited. Our soft drinks were getting warm. Also there was someone doing some construction work at this time of night that made everything that much harder to hear. The ambiance was not up to scratch.

Finally, the food came out. I was quite pleased with my Octopus sisig (PHP370), which I had with garlic rice (PHP80).

Meanwhile, Ippy was a little disappointed with her Beef Mechado rice bowl (PHP390). It was a bit too small for her liking (and overcompensated with rice). However, the slightly tomato-y beef stew was tasty enough and more savoury than sweet. We came to expect sweetness whereever we went, based on the things we had read on the Internet, but this was fine.

We were also hit with a 5% service charge for their mediocre service.

Later, we found out that the van to the hotel wasn’t free, of course nothing was free. We had to cough up PHP500 for the service, which wasn’t too bad. It was a nice hustle for someone.