Wanderlust Diary #05: The Marvelous Island of Kalanggaman (Part 01)

Somewhere off the coast of Palompon, Leyte is the island of Kalanggaman. The island was named Kalanggaman due to the 'langgam'; not the ants as we know in Tagalog but because of the birds (as they call it in Leyte) since the island has normally a lot of various migratory birds.

I had the chance to visit this island a couple of years ago during our one-month duration of work in Ormoc, Leyte. One of my co-workers was from the area and had visited the island when he was still a kid so after our work, we decided to visit the island before heading back to Manila. As for me, I was very excited to go there that time as I already saw some wonderful photos of the island in social media. It never occured to me however, that I could 'actually' visit the place.

We drove from Ormoc after lunch going to Palompon and the travel time took us around 3 hours ; including the stop-overs we took to buy ourselves the food (AND DRINKS 😊), we will be needing in the island. We arrived in Palompon around 4pm and registered ourselves. We also rented stuffs like solar lamp and overnight tents. While waiting for the boat that will take us to the island, we roamed around first and took some photos.

Our boat finally became ready. (Yey!) But before we left for the island, we had undergone an orientation first on some reminders and the do's and don'ts in Kalanggaman.

Our boat ride to the island was rough due to the gloomy weather. It didn't stop me however to settle myself on the front of the boat to see the flying fishes. Yep. Flying fishes. Like a lot of them. After a good 30 minutes of the ride, the heavy rain started to fall and the boat ride became even rougher. I was silently praying for a safe trip because by then I was starting to remember Yolanda that hit Leyte a few years back. After around 45 minutes, we finally arrived at the island; all wet and freezing from the cold rain. It was already dark by the time we arrived.

We settled for the night after having our dinner and drinking our ice cold beer. As for me, I took my beer, wandered on the sands and buried my feet there. It felt very relaxing. There was no electricity in the area (until now) so the only sound we heard were the lapping of the waves to the shore and the sound of the crickets.

I awakened my friend early the next morning because I didn't want to miss the sunrise.

Nothing prepared me for the most wonderful sunrise I witnessed that morning.

As we stood there bathing in the warm sunrise, we realized how blessed we were and how wonderful our CREATOR had been for creating such a magnificent place.

After a good 45 minutes of walking around at the long stretch of the island's sand bar and witnessing the sunrise, we made our way back to our tent, energized and already feeling great and ready for the rest of the day. 😊

If you want to visit Kalanggaman (I recommend you do it soon!), you can check for the details in here:
Kalanggaman Island
How to Get to Kalanggaman Island

Thank you for dropping by. ❤

All the best! {always}
~filnette 🍀