family villas
When one has been under the weather for nearly a week, turning down invites to exhibit openings or to endless bantering over ice cold pale, pale beer in the favorite watering hole, an invite to a pristine white sand beach will sound as ridiculous as ice cream on a cold rainy night.
But when that sick one spent childhood summers in a secluded resort in Palawan, under its emerald blue waters and mesmerized by the amazing kaleidoscope of underwater life, the chance to go back to a similar paradise will be enticing enough, come hell or high water.
And so I gave in, never mind that I could hardly sleep because I've been impossibly sick.
Of course, as expected, the invite got me out of bed in an instant. I suddenly recovered at the thought of another trip because as Jes likes to tease me, traveling is my drug, my barbiturates, my cannabis. The only one that can cure me in an instant.
And so after an hour on the plane and an hour on the road of rolling hills and hanging bridges, I found myself in the abyss of the underwater life once again -- cough and all -- after a long, long time.
There I was under the cold water, the noonday sun seeping through the deep blue sea, at the famed Misibis Bay.
Misibis Bay is my kind of resort . There's no wild crowd or noisy parties. It's for people who want to really enjoy the water and not to be seen or to see others.
Here, you can lounge all day on a chair by the beach all by yourself -- no noise, no nothing -- just you and your dreams, the waves and the deep blue sea. Go ahead and order your favorite single malt or have some margarita. Or you can simply give in to the stupor that paradise brings.
At night, you can swim in the villa's pools or have a soothing massage of your choice at the resort's spa as the Red Priest's symphony wafts in the air.
You can wind sail alone or enjoy the view of the crimson sun setting behind Mt. Mayon while eating kropek served with vinegar and chopped red onions. You can conquer the hilltop on an all terrain vehicle or you can go on a Hobie Cat sail, my favorite. Lie down on the trampoline style deck and lose yourself in the ride as the big waves splash on your face while the relentless sun roasts your skin.
It's not as perfect as the Puka Beach that we know or our beloved Palawan, but Misibis Bay is the paradise that people say it is.
Here, the wind whistles gently, the sand is tan and pink and the water, clear blue. The air smells fresh, as fresh as sage and mint, and violets, too.
And at exactly 6 in the evening when I strolled on the beach, a perfect round yellow full moon -- the first of three full-moon super-moons for the year -- turned the evening sky into an unfinished version of Van Gogh's Starry Night.
It is as close to heaven as one can get, at least when one is in this corner of the world, here in an island called Mibisis, somewhere, somewhere out there between my heart and a volcano named Mayon.
