READER STORY: PHILIPPINES
“The bay is full of jagged limestone islands called karsts, white-washed beaches, hidden lagoons teeming with fish, and jaw-dropping caves.”
beaches – and scuba-diving and snorkelling – define the Philippine island experience. Beaches surround almost every island and many are small, isolated and untouched.
In the end, we decided to go to Palawan – a long, thin island south-west of Manila. We’d explore Bacuit Bay on the northern end of Palawan, then spend a few days at an eco-lodge on a tiny island called Small Bamboo in SouthEast Culion Bay.
Capital chaos
We landed in Manila and made our way to the upmarket mini city of Makati, where our house exchange was located. If you ever visit Manila, I’d suggest you also stay in Makati since the rest of the capital is rough. The traffic is bad and it’s dusty, chaotic and hot – 31° C in mid-winter. Our stay in the bubble of Makati was much more pleasant. Our plush apartment was in a greenbelt and we had access to a range of good restaurants and five huge shopping malls. During the day we lay around the big swimming pool and went shopping; at night we sampled the world’s cuisine at the many restaurants.
The apartment was on the 39th floor of a skyscraper with sweeping views across Manila Bay. We watched the sunset while sipping wine and deciding which restaurant we should choose for dinner.
We did two day trips in Manila, both of which are worth it if you’re prepared to suffer the traffic. (Driving 30 km can take up to two hours.) We had the use of a 4x4 and a driver as part of our exchange, which made a big difference.
The first outing was to the Pinto Art Museum just outside Manila, in an oasis of lush gardens with galleries housed in traditional Filipino buildings; the second was to Intramuros, an atmospheric old city on the shore of Manila Bay. Most of old Manila was destroyed during World War II, but some parts have been beautifully preserved and restored.
Beautiful Bacuit
From Manila, we flew directly to El Nido, the gateway to Bacuit Bay where we’d booked into El Nido Garden and Beach Resort on the edge of town. I was very glad to discover that the resort had a swimming pool. The sea is warm and wonderful, but not as refreshing as a plunge in a cold pool. A slight negative is the
beach “road” that runs in front of the hotel. It’s used by trike taxis and it can be noisy.
But Bacuit Bay was simply incredible – the most beautiful archipelago location Linda and I have experienced in all our travels. It’s full of jagged limestone islands called karsts, whitewashed beaches, hidden lagoons teeming with fish, and jaw-dropping caves. Bacuit easily rivals similar bays in southern Thailand, as well as Vietnam’s famous Halong Bay.
The bay is best explored on a boat trip – I would recommend you book two trips to soak it all up. There are four standard tours of
Bacuit Bay from El Nido, each of which visits different islands.
Not one for large groups and slow boats, we set off for the day with just four other travellers. It’s a more expensive way of doing it, but I’d recommend it because getting everyone off a bigger boat at some sites takes time, not to mention getting them back onto the boat… This is because the natural state of the islands has been preserved and no landing platforms or jetties are allowed to be built. To get ashore you often have to wade over rocks and stony ground with a boatman to assist. Wear good booties or water shoes!
Our tour combined two of the set tours. At 8.30 am sharp, our speedboat roared ahead of the rest of the sightseeing fleet with our jovial skipper Gilbert at the helm. We were the first to arrive at Miniloc Island where we were met by a fair swell and a line of about 50 kayaks. Linda and I each boarded one and we set off for Miniloc, paddling into a narrow channel with a long beach on one side. About hundred metres further, wham! We were in a big lagoon – a protected slice of aquamarine water surrounded by towering cliffs. We swam as shoals of fish flashed past.
Later, the speedboat manoeuvred into a natural cave known as the Cathedral. It felt like I was inside nature’s own Sagrada Familia! The Miniloc day trip also included lunch on another island called Snake Island. Our crew pulled out all the stops, braaiing chicken,
prawns and jackfish, and serving up salads and fruit. The other tourists from Brazil and France were great entertainment as we crashed through the waves to our different stops.
The town of El Nido is not in great shape. Linda and I grade towns according to broken pavements and El Nido has hardly any pavements at all! You share the dusty streets with the local transport trikes, as well as motorbikes, cars, dogs and pedestrians.
But at night it comes into its own and delivers charm. No vehicles are allowed after dark and a plethora of stalls and markets open up. El Nido has woken up to the tourist trade in recent years and the restaurant choice is good. (Until as recently as four years ago, power was a problem and the town only had one haphazard ATM. That has all been fixed.)
You can’t swim at El Nido’s beach so we spent our days lazing on the lovely Las Cabanas beach instead – a 10-minute trike ride away. Just behind the beach was a café serving prawns and salads.
Another option if you want to visit El Nido is to stay at Corong Corong Beach a little way down the coast. It’s a long stretch of westfacing sand lined with palms and resorts, and it’s much quieter than El Nido itself but with fewer restaurant options. On reflection, I would have preferred to stay at Corong Corong for the sunsets, the views and the quiet, but Linda disagrees…
The best for last
We saved the best for last: a stay on Small Bamboo Island, which is a stunning little hillock in the middle of the ocean with a beach as big as four or five tennis courts. Paradise! To get there, we flew from El Nido to the town of Coron, which is also part of Palawan province even though it’s on a different island to the north called Busuanga. From Coron, it was a 90-minute boat ride to Small Bamboo in South-East Culion Bay. With just seven cabins, the maximum number of guests on the island is 14, plus a handful of staff members. It was blissfully peaceful – the only sounds were waves lapping, the breeze rustling the palms and an occasional boat puttering past.
The island is as zero-carbon as it gets:
100 % solar-powered, with rainwater tanks and all buildings made from wood, coco lumber, bamboo and rattan. Vegetables, citrus and herbs are grown on a nearby island, and staff members have access to fresh, nonfarmed seafood.
On the day we arrived, 90 turtles had just hatched and were being guarded by the resort in basins to be released after sunset to ensure a better chance of survival.
The central part of the eco-lodge features an open-plan area with a dining room, a bar and big couches. Three meals a day materialise from a busy little kitchen. There’s no menu, but expect prawns, chicken, tuna and salads, always finished with local fruits.
The little beach is dotted with squishy couches, hammocks and deckchairs for lazy lounging. In keeping with the ambience, the bamboo cabins are functional and comfortable, but not luxurious. Our double bed virtually took up the entire bedroom floor, and there was a tiny veranda. The (cold) shower was outside, and guests have to use a row of communal toilets. It’s great to read on the comfy couches (inside or in the sun), and then pop into your front garden for a snorkel! Reef fish, starfish and rays abound, and the coral was plentiful in the shallows. There’s also a steep drop-off for those who want to probe deeper. Kayaks, stand-up paddle boards and snorkelling gear is available. The bay is also a popular kite- and wind-surfing spot and all that gear is also available for hire.
Day trips are offered to nearby islands, but we used our three days to snorkel and idle the hours away in the sun, with a good bit of stargazing at night.
Bliss!
use a modern ferry to get to the islands, which costs much less. Each internal flight cost us roughly R3 300 for two people on AirSwift.
Accommodation
Our stay in Manila was covered through the house exchange. homeexchange.com On Palawan, we paid R2 600 a night for a beachfront double cabin at El Nido Garden Resort. (Google the hotel for the best rates; you’ll find it listed on everything from booking.com to Airbnb.) Other good options in the area include Mahogany Resort, Las Cabanas Beach Resort, Last Frontier Resort and Double Gem. If you want to go seriously upmarket, try one of the El Nido Island Resorts.
Our stay on Small Bamboo Island cost R1 511 per night for a hut sleeping two people. Food costs US$50 (R780) per person per day for three full meals. But remember you still have to pay a boatman to get you there, which costs about R1 800. (If other guests are travelling at the same time, you can share the cost.) Visit bambooislands.ph – we booked our stay through Airbnb.
OTHER ISLAND OPTIONS
• Boracay is the Philippines’ poster island, with kilometres-long stretches of fine white sand. It became so popular that the government closed it down for six months in 2019 to clean it up! (It’s open again.)
• Cebu offers some of the best diving and snorkelling in the Philippines. You can get up close with whale sharks, magnificent coral reefs and sea turtles. Divers are also nuts about Apo Reef, a sunken atoll off Mindoro Island, but it is a long 400 km away.
• Near Puerto Princesa, the capital of Palawan, you’ll find the Underground River, an 8 km-long subterranean river studded with stalactites and stalagmites (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). The river connects to the sea, so it’s teeming with fish and other marine life.
• Tao Expeditions ( taophilippines.com) offers a four-night/five-day cruise on board a big outrigger between El Nido and Coron Island in Palawan. You sleep on a different deserted island every night in bamboo beehive tents.