pearl of the orient seas (philippines)

May 4, 2025

Our first stop in the Philippines was Manila, the capital city. A sprawling metropolis, it was quite built up, chaotic and not exactly the loveliest place. However, we were only there for a few days as it’s often used a launchpad before heading to other parts of the country.

manila #

After a couple of days loitering around Manila, we hopped on an overnight ferry to Coron, our first true destination.

ferry rooftop — On the rooftop of the ferry.

before nightfall on ferry — Just before nightfall.

During the evening, I checked out the back of the ship and found a performance hall with some singers covering pop classics and ended up dancing with a bunch of other travellers. I befriended an Indian couple who were heading to Coron for a holiday, and they invited me to visit them in New Delhi when I end up in India. They even suggested I come along to an Indian wedding or two, which I’d be very excited to see.

The ferry ride was over 15 hours long, but it was honestly not that rough of a ride as we got to sleep for a decent portion of it. However, they didn’t turn of the lights in the sleeping quarters, which was a pain.

coron & el nido #

After arriving in Coron and spending a few nights at a hostel a little outside of the main town, Jade and I decided to take a 3 day multi-island cruise across Coron to El Nido. This was a pretty popular way for tourists to explore the islands and it was quite pretty, if not a bit tiring as we managed to get quite sunburnt on our first day.

We were travelling with a ragtag group of travellers from various parts of the world, including Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, and Israel. We made it work, even if we didn’t perfectly gel.

boat squad — The squad relaxing on the boat between islands.

napping man — Taking a nap on the side of the boat.

napping tour guide — One of the tour guides taking advantage of the break between snorkelling and beach lounging.

Our main tour guide presumably thinking deep thoughts.

We spent one evening sleeping in these little beach huts.

crew on the beach — The man on the left was an Aussie Dad on a separate beach island cruise, and he stopped by to have a chat.

afternoon beach view — A view from the afternoon.

A little boat, used to reach the larger ships out at sea.

boats — I loved the contrast of orange and blues.

sunset paddle boat — A man paddles out to sea during sunset.

clear water — The water was amazingly clear.

We spent everyday snorkelling and checking out lil fishies and I even spotted some small reef sharks during one of my dips. The Italian couple on the boat were our savior as they had a few spare rashies for us to wear as Jade and I resembled a pair of lobsters. I wouldn’t wish that sunburn pain on anyone.

One of the couples on our cruise were Guy and Shira. They were from Israel, and I’m a political person who is quite anti-Zionist, so it was a difficult social situation to navigate internally. I had to confront ideas about what people were like from Israel, and whether or not I should cast judgment on a relatively young couple who had no hand in the situation in their home country.

I had opted to not bring up the intense situation going on to keep the peace as I was to spend the next three days with them. On our final evening however, Guy brought up the situation and he expressed how he was upset about the hostages, but also about how he opposed Netanyahu’s government and how he longed for peace. That’s about all I could ask for, I suppose.

alt — Guy and Shira, a couple on our cruise.

On our final day of the cruise, we all huddled around a lunch the boat crew had prepared for us. Plenty of rice, chicken, fish and delicious sauces were had.

lunch with squad — Our final lunch together.

phoebe cafe — A quick pitstop at Phoebe Cafe in Coron before heading off to Boracay.

boracay #

Travelling to Boracay was a very multi-modal, long-winded journey as we had to fly from Coron to Cebu City, then from Cebu City to Caticlan, then we had to catch a bus to the ferry, catch a ferry across to the island, then take yet another bus to our accomodation. All in one day. Once we arrived, though, it was clear it was worth the trip. I mean, check out how nice the beach was!

diniwid beach — A lovely afternoon at Diniwid Beach.

sunset on boracay — The sunsets were equally as lovely.

wideshot from phone — A bugged out wide-shot from my phone that I appreciated the aesthetic of.

We spent multiple evenings at Exit Bar, which was a bar with cheap drinks, free entry and a dance floor. What’s not to like? Whilst I was there, I ended up becoming friends with a bunch of Filipinos who were studying tourism, and they invited me out the next day to get on the water.

A floating platform from where you board the famous 'banana boats'.

Boracay is essentially one or two long beaches with a spacious sandy coast. It’s not exactly a cultural place to visit, but rather just a holiday destination to drink cocktails and relax.

A beautiful sunrise after staying up all night.

After a few days, we decided to move onto our next destination.

moalboal #

We achieved an important milestone in Moalboal - we rented out a couple of motorbikes and drove around, albiet slowly at first.

jade on motorbike — Watch out, he's on the roads.

We drove out to Cambais Falls, a relatively unknown multi-level waterfall spot. We went for a dip, and I joined the locals in jumping off some of the cliffs into the deeper parts of the water.

The best experience I had in Moalboal however was probably the sardine run, but I sadly didn’t get any pictures of this. Basically, you swim out 20 meters from the shore where there is a big cliff drop off, and suddenly you’re surrounded by millions of sardines which you can swim through. I recommended looking up this to get an idea of what it looks like.

After our time in the Philippines, we were pretty beached out, and decided to carry on our adventure in Vietnam, flying first into Ho Chi Minh City.