Kayangan Lake

Kayangan sits in a hollow of Coron Island, reached by climbing a stepped path up and over the ridge from the landing cove - a hot ten minutes, with a wooden platform partway up that frames the view back down onto the boats and karst that has become Palawan's most reproduced photograph. Over the top, the lake itself is a bowl of extraordinarily clear water, part fresh and part sea, ringed by limestone and reached by a boardwalk with steps into it. Visibility runs to the bottom in the shallows, the rock walls drop away underwater, and there is a small cave at one side. The lake and the island belong to the Tagbanua, an Indigenous community with ancestral domain rights here, and their rules govern the visit: fees are paid to them, sunscreen is banned, parts of the island are closed as sacred ground, and visitor numbers are capped.

History

The lake is named after the local word for the red-vented cockatoo, kayangag, and it is one of thirteen lakes sacred to the Tagbanwa, who believed nature spirits lived in them and that swimming or fishing there was disrespectful. As visitors grew in number, the elders opened Kayangan and Barracuda Lake to tourism in 2001, after a ritual called uliwansag to ask the spirits' permission (Wikipedia, Kayangan Lake).

The landscape

• The ridge viewpoint - the framed view over the landing cove.
• The clear lake - visibility to the rock floor.
• The boardwalk - steps and platform at the water's edge.
• The karst bowl - limestone walls all around.

When to go

November to May for calm crossings. The first boats out of Coron arrive before the queue on the steps; mid-morning is the crush.

Good to know

The climb is steep steps in full sun, and it bottlenecks. Sunscreen is prohibited in the lake, life jackets are required, and the Tagbanua fee is separate from the tour price. Numbers are capped, so some days it closes early.

Nearby

Twin Lagoon, Barracuda Lake and Siete Pecados are on the same Coron circuits.

Key facts