Punta Bulata: shores of paradise

wonder | wander | women grew up in the ocean. Ever since our youth, we practically lived at the beach a few months out of the year. No matter how much we loved our adopted homelands, we yearned for the warm seas of home.

Punta Bulata Resort and Spa is a small strip of tropical heaven four hours' drive away from Bacolod City. The resort is owned by family friends and constructed with local materials like coconut wood, nipa thatch and salvaged driftwood, leaving the impression that you're staying in a garden and not the sterile concrete palaces that are becoming popular in other parts of the country.

We took a cabana only a short step from the beach and La Veranda, the restaurant serving traditional Filipino food and fresh fruit cocktails - they greeted us with their special iced tea, a welcome relief after the long hot ride. The restaurant also had Wifi, so we hardly needed the hotspot that was included with our room. 

Not that we spent a lot of time online when we had the resort almost entirely to ourselves. It was a particularly hot summer and we arrived on a Monday, so aside from one American couple also enjoying the quiet, it felt like being on a private island.

There were breezy shaded gazebos and comfortable chairs everywhere. No sooner did we step out the door than we were served with a fresh pitcher of water from a server who seemed to appear from nowhere like the genie in Aladdin. We need to make a whole other post for the food we had at the resort, so look out for that coming soon!

Not only did we take long walks along the beach every day, we also wandered the resort grounds and chatted with the staff. Punta Bulata is a sprawling property planted with all sorts of gorgeous greenery: palms, mangoes, banyans, mangroves, and flowering plants like hibiscus, frangipani and my grandfather's favourite, the plumeria known as the Bridal Bouquet.

The tropical double hibiscus

Like a symbol of the bounty of our islands, even the tree hanging over the pool was heavy with Katchamitha mangoes (locally called the Indian mango). Sadly they were not yet ripe, although that didn't stop the birds from feeding off them and leaving seeds around the grounds.

I even got some drawing done, at least on the cooler days. The beach wasn't smooth and perfect like Instagram pictures of Boracay or the Maldives, but it was rich and picturesque in a way that I'm more used to seeing on postcards and illustrations, even though I grew up on the island.

We also signed up for several treatments from the resort's Ayu Spa. The spa is part of an outreach program, employing specialists to train women from the local towns in traditional massage techniques. Guests can visit the spa for massage or scrub treatments, or book a treatment in their own rooms.

But more than walking, eating or getting massages, we came for the swimming. We were in the water as often as possible, whether in the gorgeous infinity pool by the main resort or in the salt water of the Sulu Sea, the seawater that we missed so much and that I had not so much as set foot in for a whole decade.

It was like swimming in light. In the morning we were surrounded by the blues and turquoises of the summer sea and in the evening we swam in shimmering gold, rose and tangerine hues.

View of the sea from the roof terrace

Surrounded by palms, summer breezes and silky water, we floated in a postcard-perfect dream. 

Infinity pool

This serene sanctuary was everything we had been wishing for during the cold seasons back home. We'd spent too long waiting for the right time to take this escape, stumbling over delays and obstacles, hesitating and hanging back. 

But we were finally together in the perfect place to soothe our hearts rubbed raw by the everyday grind and uncertain health of the past year. It was a feast and a delight in so many ways, and we promised we wouldn't deprive ourselves for so long again.