Echanting Coron Day 1

PALAWAN has always been a place that I want to visit before I turn 30. I have been to Puerto Princesa this month, but before I blog about our trip there, I will make one for our Coron trip first. ^_^

Coron is both the name of the largest town on the island of Busuanga, and the name of a different, smaller island just offshore. The area is famous for its World War II wreck diving, and the site has been named in many lists of top dive spots in the world.

The first inhabitants of Coron were the Tagbanuas who belong to the second wave of Indonesians who migrated to this area some 5,000 years ago. They were a nomadic, seafaring people, living mainly by fishing and subsistence agriculture.

We went to Coron, Palawan last June 30- July 2, 2012. We actually booked a tour through a site but we were scammed. We paid Php5,000 per person for the whole package of 3 days, 2 nights with airfare, hotel and tour. We're glad that we were able to booked for our flight before the agency was sued.

Anyways, since we only get the airfare out of the tour package, we went ahead and looked for a budgeted hotel and tours.

We stayed at Princess of Coron, as we want a place with a swimming pool and since the rate is not that high from other hotels without swimming pool. Check their website here: (http://www.princessofcoron.com/).

Princess of Coron Hotel

Our room for 6

We paid, Php3,000 per night for our group of six, with free breakfast and free airport transfer. We get to choose the food that we want to eat as they will ask for it the night before.

Our flight was around 10AM, we arrived at Busuanga Airport at 11AM and we were picked up by our hotel crew to check in to our hotel. After we settled our things, we went ahead and started our city tour.

Donna, Acel, me, KC, Monei

Since it's already lunch when we arrived, we asked the people for the best place to eat and they recommended Kawayanan Grill. So we walked from our hotel to try the place.

This eating place is a must see and definitely a must try when you are in Coron. The place is very domesticated, antique but homey. Your friends and family can have a relaxing ambiance after a long day or before that long day starts. There are lots of food choices, but they mostly serve seafood. We ordered a couple of dishes and we paid a little over a thousand pesos for the six of us. Not bad at all.

Sinigang na Hipon

Seafood Sisig

Kangkong with bagoong

Lomi soup

Bottomless Iced tea

After eating, we then walked to Mount Tapyas. Note: The good thing about Coron is that the city is just so small. You can go around and explore the place just by walking. Unlike Puerto Princesa, where in you really in need to hire a van or tricycle.

Start of the 700-stesps

View at the middle of the trail

The way to Mount Tapyas is a 700-steps trail. We went to a stop a couple of times since we were all girls who love to take pictures in between steps.

We reached the top and explore the place after two hours. We then asked the kids to take us some pictures and we were surprised as how knowledgeable they are in using DSLR and cameras. Look at our perfect jumpshot and view of the cross!

KC, me, Monei and Liz

Donna, Acel, KC, Monei, me, Liz

More pics with the girls

Rain poured, as in POURED hard on our way down to the mountain. It was good that there was a shed in the middle of the trail as we stayed there, and minutes later we decided to dripped and soaked in the rain.

We went back to our hotel to change and we headed to Maquinit Hot Spring. We rented a tricycle and we paid Php100 per person for our roundtrip ride.

There is an entrance fee of Php50 per person.

We so love the warm, salty water coming from the mountain as we were able to relax and massage our sore legs. More picture taking later as KC brought her camera's tripod. It was so great that all our pictures were a group of crazy, wacky, serious, hot,(errr), gorgeous pictures.

We rode to our tricycle back to the city and we ate at a lugawan, which I forgot the name. The price is just the same as a regular lugawan here in Manila.