Kayangan Lake

Kayangan Lake fills a hollow among the limestone walls of Coron Island, in the far north of Palawan, and it owes its fame to water so clear that from the surface you can follow the rock ledges and the slim shapes of garfish many metres down. The lake is shallow by mountain standards — about ten metres at its deepest — but the light reaching the bottom makes it look like a sheet of glass laid over a submerged karst landscape of pinnacles and fissures.

The water is brackish rather than fresh: roughly seven parts rain and spring water to three parts sea that seeps in through the porous limestone. That mixing keeps the community of life small and particular — crabs, snails, and fish that tolerate both salt and fresh. A cave known as Awuyuk opens off the lake, and floating bamboo rafts let visitors lie over the deepest part and look straight down.

Kayangan is one of thirteen lakes on Coron Island held sacred by the Tagbanwa, the island's indigenous people, and its name comes from their word for the red-vented cockatoo. In 2002 the Tagbanwa were granted ancestral domain over the lake, and they opened it to visitors only after a ritual asking spiritual permission. They still manage it today, which is part of why the place has kept a reputation as one of the cleanest lakes in the Philippines. Life vests are compulsory, and scuba gear is not used here.

What most people know as "the" Kayangan photograph is in fact taken from a lookout partway along the path: a notch in the rock frames the boat cove below, with its turquoise shallows and a crowd of jagged karst islets beyond. The lake itself lies on the other side of the ridge. Both are worth the climb — the view for its composition, the lake for the moment of slipping into water that seems barely there.

Getting there

The practical base is Coron town on neighbouring Busuanga Island; the nearest larger settlement by straight line is Culion, about 23 km away across the water. Francisco B. Reyes Airport (USU), on Busuanga, is about 23 km from the lake, with road transfers to Coron town. From Coron town's harbour, island-hopping boats cross to Coron Island in roughly 15–20 minutes. From the landing a steep stairway of several hundred steps leads over the ridge, past the famous viewpoint, and down to the lake shore.