I arrived in Coron at 5.45 pm. I walked away from the port to get a tricycle to take me to my hostel. There I found out that a girl that I didn't really like (seen it all, done it all, at age 20) was in my room too. She was in El Nido, in the same backpacker but left a day before me. She offered me to go and have diner with some people she'd met on her island hoping that day. I thought it could be a good idea and accepted. It's great to get to know new people when you arrive somewhere.

I had a nice evening but the food took forever to arrive and the company wasn't that good. I missed the crew of the night before in El Nido. Really different !

Because I was going to stay 5 nights in Coron and because my previous nights had been aweful I decided I wasn't going to do anything on my first day. That was a good call because I had another horrible night. The A/C from the almost week before had been bad on me and I'd been caughing most nights.

All I did that day was walk around Coron, sign up for diving the next day, go for a massage and watch the sunset. The massage wasn't great but for 300 pesos I couldn't complain much. It was still good. The sunset was amazing ! I was watching it while drinking nice fresh fruit juice, by the sea. Very good first day !

The next day I went diving with Seadive. A big company that owns a diveshop, the restaurant where I was watching the sunset from the night before, a bar and probably more. I did 3 dives. The first one was one of the most amazing dives I've ever done. Barracuda Lake.

This lake is very special. First of all, it's gorgeous. You get there by boat as it's located on Coron Island and then by a short climb up a set of stairs and a short climb down.Very very tricky one when you have you tank one your back, fins in one hand and camera in the other, trying not to trip and fall between the woobly wooden steps. Then the lake open up in front of you. Gorgeous, massive cliffs of black stones falling into the water. And the water, the most amazing one. From the surface to about 28 metres, the water is brackish (half fresh, half salty) and warm, very warm:29 degrees. Beautiful. Then, you see the thermocline. Very neat ! The water below 28 metres is at 38 degrees ! And it's only salty. The feeling is amazing and the view even more. These layers of water, blurry, clear, very amazing.The dive got us to go up a little through rock formations and back at 29, freezing ! Well only for a moment, of course. And those brown shadows, swimming through the blurry water below, you just wonder what they are. Even though I never am scared of anything in the water, that was a bit freeky for I couldn't see what it was.It ended up to be a catfish....like one of those we had just before our safety stop. They'd eat the meat from the shell we broke with stones and would even come to our fingers. Along with shrimps that were not shy at all and even climbed on the divemaster's arm :)

This was one of the best dives I've done...

I was very much looking forward to doing the next 2 dives too because they were wreck dives.The first one was pretty good as the visibility was about 5 to 8m and the boat sank the right way up.I could guess where I was, take not so bad pictures. But the last dive, the boat was lying on its side, so I had no idea where I was and when and the visibility was aweful. The technical positive point of the day is that I never was cold (2x3mm wetsuits and my hooded top helped a lot !) but the negative point is that my computer failed me. On the first dive. So, kids, never do that but I dove with the DM's computer, I mean we both dove with his computer. I know...

On that day I also met a couple of french girls who'd done Tao Expedition, a very expensive but amazing 5 days expedition between El Nido and Coron, and Laura, an english girl I spent the rest of my stay with. The day after the dives we went Island hoping.We saw the most amazing sceneries, a bit like in El Nido: amazing beaches, lagoons and Kayangan Lake, another postcard lake with a 29 degrees water. And of course a gorgeous view point, the one you see on the internet when you google Coron. It was so nice we did another tour the next day, including only 3 beaches but one of them being really a postcard like one: Malcapuya.We only stayed a couple of hours and got our guide crazy when the Filipino guests wanted an early lunch which meant leaving the island for another one when we, 3 Europeans didn't... Banana Island, the second place was very beautiful but got quite crowded very quickly. The last beach wasn't even that nice but I can't complain, really. We went back quite late as we went quite far out and our boat wasn't the fastest ! And joined Teresa, who was in the dorm with me.She'd been out that day and we met her for our last diner together, is a vegetarian restaurant (surprising but welcome, in the Philippines);

I left Coron on thrusday 5th. I really didn't have much choice. When I looked up at flights at the beginning of the week (I didn't have a ticket out of Coron when I arrived) I had the choice to leave on thursday or saturday and when I really wanted to book to leave on saturday everything was fully booked. I'd have loved to stay another couple of days. Coron has so much to offer.I didn't even go to the hot springs ! Well, probably another time. I'd love to go diving there with a good visibility too so I guess I'll have to go back ! :D

I had a small detail to fix once I left Coron....where would I go next ? I had a ticket to Brunei for the same night, so my first option was to go there for a couple of weeks, as sort of planned. My other option was, as I wanted to do before leaving the Philippines, go to Donsol and swim with whale sharks. And the last option was to go up north and visit the rice fields.

Considering I extended my visa, I did have the option to stay. My flight to Brunei being only 60€ I thought it was ok to lose it. When I talked to people I met about Donsol, I was told (and I had read it too) that the last couple of years haven't been good and that you'd be lucky to see one whale shark at all. And because I didn't really wanna spend time and money and probably not see them, I decided otherwise.

The night I arrived in Manila, I took a bus to Baguio, North of Luzon...