Day 1, Coron (Inland town tour)

After having lunch at Dive Link Resort, we went back to the port to start our tour of the town. Coron's main town was not as large as I thought. It seemed that, from the pictures from the other blogs that I have read, that Coron is a big town.

Coron is a place where you can never get lost even if you do not have a map. It's small streets are busy though with the people of Coron and tourists that come and go. You can add to that the tricycles that go around as it's main public transport to go around town.

As agreed, we met with two tricycle operators that Ate Cherry contracted for our group of seven. One tricycle fits three to four persons. It costs P300 for one tricycle for the whole trip.

Photo by Tina Calanog

Our first stop was the Municipal Town Hall of Coron. It was a small building with a small garden. We just took pictures with the CORON sign in front of it.

Photo by Tina Calanog

We next dropped by the souvenir shops to buy pasalubong. The souvenirs they sell are just the usual things that are also being sold in other tourist spots. There were assorted ref magnets, colorful keychains, wood carvings, pencil holders, paper weights, t-shirts, etc. As compared to souvenirs being sold in other places, though they were just ordinary, their price in Coron were a bit expensive. Keychains were sold at P20 each where you can buy them for only P15 in other places. T-shirts cost P230 where in other tourist spots they were being sold for only P120. I got to buy a t-shirt though for P100 for my younger sister in another shop. You just need to ask the tricycle drivers to take you to other stores.

Then we went to the most challenging part of the tour: Mt. Tapyas. You need to climb up more than 700 steps to reach the top. You can see old people also climbing the mountain. I could not imagine how can they climb that height at their age! I almost wanted to give up when I was just half-way. We climbed up Mt. Tapyas despite of the heat. You really need to have a bottle of water when you hike up.

Even just on the 400th step, you can see the beautiful islands of Coron. I was able to take the view from this point only since when I was able to reach the top, I did not have the energy to stand up and take pictures. My friends though were able to take some pictures of themselves with the Mt. Tapyas' famous iron cross.

Photo by Tina Calanog

Going down Mt. Tapyas was a lot easier. We were so tired when we were able to get back at the foot of the mountain.

We next went to Coron Harvest, a store for different types of cashew nuts. I bought roasted cashew nuts and cashew nut brittle. They were a bit expensive which was a disappointment. I thought that since Coron boasts of its cashew farms that they would be selling it a a cheaper price, but they were selling it as if you were in Manila.

We were supposed to go to Maquinit Hot Springs but we did not have enough time since it was already getting dark and the free boat service of Dive Link was only up to 7:00 p.m. We would have to pay P100 each if we went beyond that time to get us back to the hotel.

Dive Link Resort, Coron

After months of waiting, finally, the day of our trip to Coron, Palawan came! Me and my officemates booked a 3D/2N trip with J2 Travel via cleverbuy.com.ph last year. The vouchers we bought include roundtrip airfare to Busuanga via Cebupacific, accommodation at Dive Link Resort with daily buffet breakfast, and Coron island hopping tour with lunch, all for less than P5,000/pax.

Flight to Busuanga was on time but it was oven hot inside the plane. I heard one passenger say "It is really more 'fan' in the Philippines" with everyone aboard fanning themselves. It was just a short trip for less than 45 minutes.

At midday, we touched down on top of the mountains of Busuanga and we were warmly welcomed by a staff from Dive Link Resort ans ushered us to the van that would take us to the port. It was a 30 minutes drive to downtown and you can see nothing but farmlands and greens along the way.

We were greeted by Ms. Cherry of J2 Travel at the port and explained the details of our voucher before helping us board the boat that would bring us to Dive Link Resort. We asked her to arrange a town tour for us after we check in and have lunch at the resort.

Unlike most inns and hotels in Coron which are located within the Coron mainland, Dive Link Resort stands on its own island apart from the others which allows for a more peaceful and quiet stay. A wonderful concrete pathway to the resort greeted us when we arrived. Whichever way you look, all you would see are beautiful.

We were welcomed warmly by the Dive Link staff with cold drinks and shell necklaces. All of them were very accommodating and attentive to your needs. The resort manager also briefed us about the resort and all the services they provide plus the facilities that we could freely use during our stay.

We were a group of seven and they provided us with four rooms for the four vouchers that we purchased. The rooms were setup in small cottages. They are all clean and cozy, complete with large pillows and blankets. They clean the room on a daily basis even if you do not ask them to, so you just need to inform them if you do not need your room cleaned for the day.

Our cottage was located just beside the water and you could feel the sea breeze when you sit by the veranda and hear the soft waves at night. The cottages have large windows that you can open during the day when there is no electricity in the whole of Coron. Power is only up from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. You would not have to worry about warm nights as the rooms are air conditioned by then.

We decided to have lunch at the resort since we were not decided yet as to where we would eat. We were all glad that we had lunch at Dive Link. The food was very delicious and in large servings too! We ordered their specialty lechon kawali and kare-kare which costed around P1,800 including the rice for all of us.

After lunch, we rested for a while before starting our inland town tour of Coron.

2012 Thomson Reuters Volunteer for the Community Day

It is the time of the year again for the Thomson Reuters Volunteer for the Community Day. This has been happening annually since 2009 and today is its 4th year celebration.

Employees across all the business units of Thomson Reuters sign-up for the event and choose their beneficiary activity they would join in. The choices were Childhaus, Virlanie, Isang Litrong Liwanag, UP-PAUW, and Kythe Foundation among others.

This is the third time that I have joined the event. Ever since I have become part of the Thomson Reuters family, I immediately grabbed the very first opportunity for me in 2010 to join this celebration. Since then, I have committed myself to engage in the activity every year. In 2010, I joined the Quezon City Circle clean-up of its grounds. In 2011, I helped with the repainting of the school buildings by the UP-PAUW located within the UP Campus.

This year, I chose to be part of the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm house-building and landscaping activities in Angat, Bulacan. As usual, me and my office friends always are together in the same activity.

Named after the place of its origin, Bulacan’s Barangay Encanto—which connotes images of the supernatural and magical in Filipino—the Enchanted Farm is the canvas for Gawad Kalinga’s second phase of the 2024 road map to end poverty in the Philippines. Once idle and unproductive, the area is being transformed into a landscape of vast potential that will sustain communities for generations to come. The first of 24 CSI sites around the Philippines, The Enchanted Farm in Bulacan follows a template that fuses three different concepts. (GK Enchanted Farm website)

The schedule of our voluntary work involved house building, compost pit digging, football field leveling, and garden landscaping. Just with words, we already knew that it wold not be easy tasks especially in the middle of summer with the country burning and scorching in heat.

We left the meeting place in Makati at 6:00 a.m. and we arrived in the farm at 8:00 a.m. We were first oriented and briefed about the GK Enchanted Farm. It was not only the group of Thomson Reuters employees who came there. There were also a lot of other volunteers and support groups scheduled to be in the farm that day.

Our first stop was house building. This was not new to me since I have already volunteered for Habitat for Humanity some years ago to build houses. I helped with the shoveling of sand and gravel to be used for the house's flooring. My other friends helped too with the shoveling while the others helped in leveling the soil to where the cement mix would be poured.

The other members of the group at the same time as us helped with the flattening of the grounds that would be converted to a small football field while the others went to the compost pit site.

The next activity I joined in was the landscaping of the land around GK Enchanted Farm's "palace" which would be a place and reception for future weddings and other functions. We scraped and pulled of the grass around. It was fun even though the heat of the sun burned us and we were soaked in sweat.

The activities ended in midday and we went back to Quezon City to have our culminating activity and recognize all the volunteers who participated. It was another successful day for Thomson Reuters.