CORON - Paradise on Earth! (Palawan, Philippines)

We're on Coron Island in the Philippines. And we're staying on our own private houseboat. In this episode we're going to take you on a tour of our magnificent houseboat which is located in a hidden lagoon. I cannot believe this is where we are staying. Join us on our private boat tour where we swim in the most stunning lakes. And snorkel in crystal clear waters alongside colourful fish. That was a real buzz. But the highlight is the famous Twin Lagoons. Check out this water. Philippines, you definitely have the most turquoise water. This place is literally paradise. That's our houseboat right there. I'm so excited. I've never stayed on a houseboat before. Oh my god, we're gonna have our own little floating island. Welcome to our own private houseboat. This place is crazy. I cannot wait to take you on a tour. There are 14 houseboats in this lagoon. We're staying on one of the new glass houseboats. So the first area I'm going to show you is the dining area that we have here. It's got little lanterns and a fan. A lovely cozy place to sit and have breakfast or lunch. Really looking forward to using this space. Also comes with our own filtered water over there. Such a beautiful spot. And over here we have a beautiful huge deck that's looking over the entire lagoon. Say hello Ella, she's already started relaxing. We also have a kayak here. So really looking forward to trying that out. Okay, we have another seating area. We have to be really careful because each section is its own floating deck. So beautiful. Just sitting and looking at the vegetation and the beautiful limestone landscape. Such a nice cozy place to sit and have a coffee in the morning. I'm going to take you into the first bedroom. Oh my gosh. What an amazing place to wake up in the morning. Look at this view. The houseboat has Wi-Fi, but they also give you this small iPad so that you can WhatsApp the reception and the restaurant, which is very handy. There's also a walkie-talkie as well. So if there's any problems with the internet, you can always contact the reception with the walkie-talkie. Lots of storage here. A full-length mirror. There is air conditioning as well, but there is a small charge for this one because they have to run a generator for the air conditioning, but you can do that. So there's one there and one over here. So you have to be really careful not to fall in. I was rolling the suitcase before and it's on a little bit of a slant and the suitcase almost went into the lagoon. There are these glass sliding doors that completely close. So later on when the mosquitoes come out, we'll definitely be closing those up. But it's beautiful with these glass doors because in the morning, when we wake up, we'll be able to look out at the view. So plenty of space here for your luggage and for storage. More storage over here and a spot to put a small suitcase. And this is the bathroom. Okay, let me show you what we have in here. There is a shower on this side and then over here, we have a marine toilet. So this is the marine toilet. It's actually so cute and tiny. I never thought I would call a toilet cute, but it actually is quite cute. You have to switch this button across to make the water run. Then you do your business. Then you need to stop the water. And then you do some of these ones. Oh, and try not to splash it everywhere, of course. And then it sucks it down into the tanks below the houseboat. And they don't let any of it out into the lagoon. It all gets taken away by these small boats that come along and they get rid of all the waste water and they take it somewhere else. I don't know where, but they take it somewhere else. Let's go see the other side. So it's almost identical to the other side. Have the seating area here. Follow me. Again, you have to watch your step. Okay, I have this really cute dining space over here. It's a bit bigger than the one on the other side. And it's got really cute lanterns and it's got a fan too. And we have another area for just lazing about and relaxing and just enjoying the surroundings. This is seriously a pinch myself moment. I cannot believe that I'm here right now. This place is so beautiful and I cannot wait to get into this water. It looks just so inviting. Oh, we have another kayak. And an outdoor shower. And from anywhere, you can pretty much just jump in. See, it even tells you. It actually says here, jump. So definitely going to do that a little bit later. I can't wait to take a dip. I can see lots of fish. They've recommended not to swim at night because there's a lot of jellyfish around in this area. And at night when they have the lights on, the jellyfish are attracted to the lights. So we have to be really careful of the jellyfish at night. So no swimming at night. Okay, come with me. Show you the next bedroom. Welcome to the master suite. So we have lovely bed. And again, what a gorgeous view. Oh my gosh. This side's a little bit more private because it's facing the cliff. The other side, you're obviously open to the full lagoon. Okay, and we have more storage. More storage here. Plenty of place to put your luggage. And there's an identical bathroom to the one next door. Complete with marine toilet, a shower, and two wash basins. This is one pretty spectacular view. I have a beautiful view of the lagoon plus Coron town on Bushwanga Island. All from my bedroom. Like that's crazy. Our lunch has just arrived by boat. Hi. What a cool service. Hello. Currently having chicken in a coconut sauce. And oh my gosh, it is delicious. Absolutely amazing. Exactly what I felt like. There's not much else to say. It's just really good. Come on. Ella was getting a little hangry before. So I'm really happy that she's eating right now because she's a little scary when she's hangry. Casper and I are having grilled fish with rice and broccoli. And we also have this delicious stuffed squid. It's stuffed with all types of vegetables. Oh my God. I actually don't know how we take her out sometimes. It's a little bit of a worry. Yeah. So looking forward to digging in. Now you're probably wondering how do you get to this paradise of an island? Well, the easiest way is to take a flight from Manila to Bushwanga Island. It only took us about 40 minutes. So we then got picked up from the airport and taken by a van down to a harbour, which was approximately half an hour's drive. We then jumped in a speedboat and it took us about 20 minutes to get to the Palin houseboats. So a few steps to get here, but definitely well worth it. We had such a fun time swimming in the lagoon. It was crazy how many fish and corals that were right next to our houseboat. It was also a great spot for kayaking. We are going on a boat tour around Coron Island. We're going to explore some of the lagoons and lakes. So the boat people have just picked us up now and we're going to go on our private boat and start exploring. The water here is so turquoise. It's absolutely beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen water this clear before. Just on our way to Kayangan Lake and we've just stopped at this beautiful lookout. Oh my gosh. Check out the lagoon behind me. It is so blue. Wow. That water. We are at Kayangan Lake and it is brackish water. So 70% freshwater, 30% saltwater. And it is absolutely stunning. They have these beautiful rock formations along the sides of the boardwalk and there's fish and the water is just so clear and turquoise. It is absolutely beautiful. We are here before nine o'clock. Nine o'clock is the time when all the tours come from the main island. So I guess that's the benefit of staying on Coron Island is that we're so close to sites like this so we can come early before all the tourists come. Oh my gosh. The water is absolutely beautiful. It is perfect. Oh my gosh. It is so nice and it's so clear. I can just see these cute little shells on all the rocks and these little fish swimming around. But yeah, the temperature. It is exactly how I love water. It's so nice and warm. You can see I'm carrying this lovely orange life vest. So it's mandatory when you swim in the lakes here that you have to bring the life vest with you. Oh yeah. That's so nice. Nice temperature. Okay. One, two, three. So lovely, isn't it? So pretty. Wow. I feel like we look a bit white. A little bit of a tan, I think. We have just arrived at our next stop, which is Barracuda Lake. You look really cool actually coming into docking the boat. There was this rock wall you could see and basically on the other side of that rock wall, that's where you find the lake. Not as much of a boardwalk along this lake so it's a little bit more cramped than the other lake. The sun is just starting to come out and it looks absolutely beautiful. It's shining on the water making it so turquoise. This particular lake is actually really deep and it is so clear that you can actually see all the way to the bottom. Oh my gosh, I love being out on the boat. It's where I feel most alive. I was brought up boating so yeah, it's bringing me back to my childhood. I love being out on the water. We are heading now to Coral Garden, which I think is a reef. So we might go and do some snorkeling and some swimming. It's a bit bumpy today but it's absolutely beautiful. This landscape is stunning. These karst landscapes remind me a little bit of Halong Bay or a little bit like Pranar Bay in Thailand. It's quite a nice spot to go snorkeling. They're both soft and hard corals down there and there are quite a few fish. It was very nice. Saw some beautiful corals, some cute fish. Very refreshing. Perfect water temperature too. I hate water that's too hot or too cold so it was perfect. I haven't done snorkeling like that in a long time. That was so beautiful. Often when I go snorkeling, I feel pretty underwhelmed because the coral's often really dead and there's not many fish but that was beautiful. There was this big blue coral. It was absolutely gorgeous and so many fish. That was a real buzz. We're not graceful at all. We just got to this beautiful beach so we're just gonna lie and relax and go for a little swim here. The water is so beautiful. I really like the look with a few palms. You have the rocks in the background or the green vegetation on the rocks and then the beautiful crystal blue water and I also like the look of the Filipino boats. I don't really know what they're called. It kind of looks like a type of catamaran. I really like the look of those boats. They look really cool. I know we've probably said it a lot of times throughout the vlog but can we just like have a moment of appreciation for the water? How turquoise is this water? It's absolutely crazy. I've never seen water this turquoise. Philippines, you definitely have the most turquoise water. There's actually no soil on this island so it's basically one big beautiful rock. For the locals, this isn't so good because they can't get any income from agriculture because they can't grow anything so their main source of income is fishing. Also, there's no fresh water on the island so they have to get their resources such as water from Bushwanga Island. We would definitely recommend doing this tour. It has been absolutely beautiful. We just arrived at the famous Twin Lagoons and there's such a lovely boardwalk here. It looks a little busy up ahead so let's go check it out. We're currently at the first lagoon and you can only enter the second lagoon via kayak so we can see lots of people kayaking entering the second lagoon. Behind me, you can actually see there's a bit of a shelf and then it just drops and it looks really, really deep. The colour of the water completely changes from a light turquoise colour to a deep blue. This place is literally paradise. It is so beautiful. I know we keep talking about this water all day long but we just cannot get over how beautiful, crystal clear and turquoise it is. It is absolutely stunning and these rock formations, wow. It is really, really beautiful. Absolutely spectacular scenery. We're heading back to our houseboat now. We're going to go and have some lunch and then we might take a bit of a dip in the water around our houseboat and yeah, just relax. I cannot believe this is where we are staying. It is in the most beautiful location. It's so crazy how we can literally jump off our bed into the water. It looks like lunch is arriving. We've just come to the main reception and restaurant at Peiolin Houseboats and it is absolutely gorgeous. It is set in a lagoon so there are cliffs on either side and absolutely gorgeous views all around. There's an upper and lower deck and if you come over here there's also seating and sunbeds so you can just jump straight into the beautiful blue water. They have a bar and they have a tour desk where you can book tours around the island. I have Jayam here with me. He's from one of the local tribes here on Koron Island. So I just wanted to ask you a little bit about the tribes and how many people work here at Peiolin? 204 staff but 20% is from the local town 80% is from the tribe. Okay, so 80% of people that are working here in Peiolin are from the tribe. Okay, how many members are still a part of the tribe? Almost 3,500 population live here in Koron Island. So all of that is a tribe. Okay, that's amazing. And what opportunities has Peiolin provided for the tribe members? A lot of opportunities from Peiolin. Especially work, scholarship for go to the school. Okay. And also health supply and foods. Yeah, okay, wow. So it's made a big difference in your life. Before I don't know how to drive the speedboat but now I am the captain of the Peiolin houseboat and also I speak a little bit English. That's my experience here in Peiolin houseboat. I think he speaks really good English. So I think you're doing really well. So awesome. But it was really nice to meet you and thank you for sharing this information. So thank you for visiting the little paradise of the Koron Island and thank you for choosing the Peiolin houseboat. I hope you will enjoy here in our place. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you, mom. Thank you, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Please like and subscribe and follow and share. We've had an amazing time here on Koron Island and we definitely recommend Peiolin houseboats. Okay, that's it for this video. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel so that you don't miss out on any of our upcoming adventures. See you next time on Living the Jo Life. Caught my hair. So this is from Koron Town which is the other island of I want to say Burrawanda Island. Burrawanda Island. What's the island name? What's the other island name? Bushawanga Island. There we go. I knew something kind of exotic sounding. Okay, let me do that again. Oh my god. Just as I went to step up the whole platform just moved. We also have a stuffed squid here. All right, I'm going to show you. Take a look at that big boy. Oh, oh. I just dripped squid juice all over the table. How are my eyes looking by the way? Pandery. Whoops. Do you see that? Look a little pandery. Oh, it was worth it.