We landed in a small propeller plane on the small island of Busuanga. The “airport” was in the center of the island, and there was nothing besides hills and bushes. At the edge of the runway there was a small corrugated iron hall to which the luggage from the machine was carried by workers. Our question as to how we could get to Coron from here was immediately answered by itself. In front of the hall, several busy young men with minivans were waiting for the passengers and asking everyone where they were staying. I wanted to share a ride with others again, but that made things complicated for the drivers. After we heard that the one-hour drive only cost 150 pesos, i.e. three euros, we didn’t care if we had a whole minibus to ourselves. When we agreed, we started immediately, two people, driver and passenger, drove us through the winding streets of the bush to the south coast, where Coron was. The fuel in this country cannot be so cheap that the trip could be financially worthwhile.

Coron looked small and bustling at first. Actually there were only two or three streets with shops and restaurants. Although there was a lot of space on land, people built most of their houses on stilts in the water. This is probably the best way to use the sewage system. Only the construction site of an ugly concrete bunker indicated that this city had now also been discovered for tourism. Otherwise this city lived its Filipino origins with farms in which fighting cocks were raised and fast food outlets in which there were grilled pork heads on the hand.

We also observed how young women were preparing strange things at tables in a shop where we treated ourselves to shade in the midday heat and something cool. It turned out that these were bird nests of special swallows that only existed in the local island world. The fishermen went to islands with steep rocks, climbed up there and looked for abandoned nests. These were edible, were cleaned by the women and sold to China, where a lot of money was paid for these snacks with supposed healing properties.

We stayed in a rather empty hostel right by the harbor. This building was also put on the water.

Accordingly, one sat on planks over the water and admired the interesting marine world below