Coron's Pure Shores

I’ve come back from Coron five shades darker, a souvenir I never asked for and don’t particularly like. My skin bears the evidence of long days under an unfiltered sun, the kind that doesn’t negotiate and doesn’t apologize. I tried hats, I tried shade, I tried convincing myself it would fade quickly. It didn’t. But with a beach like this, how could I complain? There are worse prices to pay for beauty, and this one felt almost fair.

My country is messy, flawed in ways that gnaw at you daily. The kind of flaws that exhaust you before the day even begins. Systems that don’t work, promises that collapse under scrutiny, a constant low-grade frustration that follows you wherever you go. And then, without warning, it blindsides you with places like Coron—as if the country itself is reminding you why you stay. Why, despite everything, do you keep choosing to belong?

Coron doesn’t ask for flowery descriptions or superlatives. It doesn’t need them. It’s a place that silences you. The sand is bone-white, the kind that reflects light so sharply it almost hurts your eyes. The water is impossibly clear, a blue that seems unreal until you’re floating in it, watching your shadow ripple across the seafloor. The cliffs rise like cathedrals of limestone, ancient and indifferent, carved by time and tide without any regard for human awe. They don’t perform. They simply exist.

Out on the water, time behaved differently. Hours dissolved between boat rides, swims, and the quiet ritual of climbing back onto the deck, dripping and sun-warmed. There was a strange humility in being surrounded by something so vast and unconcerned with you. The lagoons held their silence. The reefs went on living whether you watched them or not. Even the wrecks—rusting, skeletal reminders of another war, another era—rested beneath the surface with a solemnity that demanded respect, not curiosity.

There were moments when I caught myself just… stopping. No photos. No narration in my head. Just standing there, salt drying on my skin, listening to the water lap against limestone walls. Coron has a way of pulling you out of yourself, not gently, but firmly, like it’s saying: this is bigger than you, so breathe.

Here’s my key takeaway from my recent trip to Coron: the island doesn’t erase imperfection; it places it in perspective. To stand on its shores is to understand that beauty doesn’t fix things, but it steadies you. It reminds you that frustration doesn’t get the final word. That somewhere beyond the noise and the daily grind, unadorned and unbothered beauty still exists—not as an escape, but as proof.

Proof that even in a country that maddens and frustrates me, there are sanctuaries that quietly save me. Places that don’t promise solutions, only clarity. Places that don’t shout, but stay.

And maybe that’s the point. Paradise isn’t meant to be perfect. It’s just meant to be real enough to make you stay.