Enchantment in Antulang

A solar lighthouse dominates what used to be a barren cliffside stretch before the southernmost bend of Negros Island, where the coastal towns past Dumaguete — Bacong, Dauin, and Zamboanguita — come to a head, so to speak, in Siaton of Maytime’s resplendent flame trees. Then the island’s gentle contour heads up again for the western coastline going north to Sipalay, Kabankalan, Bacolod...

Looking more like a modest-sized missile, in blinding white and ready for a launch, the lighthouse serves as a fine metaphor for the kind of entrancing junctures of seascape and celestial activity experienced in these parts.

The sun charges that immobile rocket ship, which then emits light signals for ship captains to tip their hats to as they steer their way to and from Dipolog in Northern Mindanao, through Tañon Strait bejeweled by Siquijor, Apo, and Sumilon by the southernmost tip of Cebu.

The moon, sliver to crescent to full, takes care of the rest of the entrancement. Well, not until after yet another fiery exhibit memorializes the day at sunset. Clouds mass and heave up, break off into fragments to enhance all those red and orange swaths or streaks against all of that heavenly blue. When a beholder is particularly covetous of magic, why, a patch of rainbow even appears just above the horizon by Siquijor.

Now, viewing all these from rocky coastline, as primeval as one gets, spells frabjous poetry enough. But when comfort, nay, luxury, attends the proceedings, one knows all that effort at crafting lyrical verse has been rewarded: O Lucky Man!

Such is the delight of a weekend at Antulang Beach Resort, the only holiday site in our physically blessed archipelago that offers pool villas with individual private pools and heated outdoor Jacuzzis — posh extras besides the common grounds’ infinity pools, children’s playground, aviary, floral displays, fine restaurants and other first-class amenities. 

Premium suites, cottages and cabanas also dot the 10-hectare property 40 kilometers or an hour’s drive from Dumaguete. The presidential and executive suites are perched right atop craggy outcrops on the very shoreline. In the pool villas, one steps out of a well-appointed bedroom into a large terrace with pocket gardens. Across the private pool is the drop-off to sea, with curved chrome railings as the only architectural gesture demarcating the top view of corals in clear turquoise waters.

Below, too, is a winding concrete walkway that hugs the rocks and provides access to occasional sandy strips, depending on the vagaries of amihan and habagat seasons.

Businessman Juanito “Boy” Lee, originally from Cebu, purchased the hectarage on the rocky mesa in the mid-’90s, and built a sprawling family bungalow high above the sea. He soon found numerous siblings and friends sharing the weekends in Antulang, then a nearly inaccessible sitio of Siaton. He built two more cottages for guests, and was eventually inveigled by a Korean friend to expand it into a resort featuring pool villas.

His cliffside aerie looked much like Monaco, he was told. He was also assured that honeymooners from Korea would fill up all 30 envisioned pool villas. Boy Lee, who built his fortune on copra trading and flour milling, wasn’t too sure, but went ahead anyway and developed the resort.

Apart from the suites, cabanas and cottages that share common gardens, the pair of infinity pools, a children’s wading pool and a special 150-foot scuba dive training pool, Lee agreed to construct an initial set of pool villas that lie in a row, complete with carports and divided by high walls. Six have gone up so far. In the works are a function hall for 150 guests, a conference room for 60, and a videoke bar. Also planned are a chapel for in-house weddings, a spa, and a golf driving range.

Indeed, the honeymooners have come, in more ways than one, and conceivably enjoyed the utter privacy that allows nudist frolic on a pool villa’s sun-kissed terrace.

The elegant matrimonial bed allows a welcome view of endless sea upon waking, even of fishermen’s boats circling together to lay or haul up a net. One can spend an entire day in the privacy of the pool villa, order for personalized service from Waldo’s Bar close by or the Farola (by the solar lighthouse) that is the main restaurant. Satellite TV comes with DVD tapes.

The jacuzzi is right outside the glass-walled bathroom, by one corner of the sizable private pool. Table settings on the terrace allow for private meals.

At night, the constellation of Scorpio lords it in the eastern sky, with the Southern Cross pointing the way to Dipolog. Lightning flashes usually provide a kinetic show right above Siquijor. 

While nature provides the spectacle and the Lee family the luxurious amenities — with daughter Annabelle Lee-Adriano serving as general manager — Antulang’s topography also allows for a myriad of extras, in fact more than enough for even a privileged week’s stay.

Available for dive cruises to Apo Island of the exemplary marine sancuary, or for fishing expeditions, is a 65-foot trimaran named MB Annabelle Lee. (How else could Lee have named the vessel he himself designed, but after his daughter in this kingdom by the sea?)

A simpler if no less enthralling experience is a late-afternoon cruise down the coastline and into Tambobo Bay, a natural harbor that has developed into an international yacht basin, thanks to European retirees who find their pensions worth an idyllic closure in paradise.    

As many as half a hundred vessels — yachts, sloops, schooners, sailboats — lie in anchor in the placid waters, while cabins and cottages have risen along the bay shore, by mangroves and bamboo clumps all spelling a rustic Eden. Beyond, to the southwest, rises Mt. Talinis with its Cuernos de Negros.

Plans are afoot for a RO-RO wharf for quick passage from Tambobo to Dipolog. No telling if the usual slew of sugba stalls and videoke joints that follow any commercialization would affect the harbor’s quiet and lovely grace.

The MB Annabelle Lee circles around all sorts of quaintly named boats: Black Rose from Rotterdam, Kapaliga from Japan, Cadence from Half Moon Bay in California, Katas ng Pho Hoa from Vietnam, and others from all over the world.

Towards sunset, the cruise back to Antulang Beach Resort renders sheer dramatic splendor. Dinner onboard can be arranged before lovers ride the dinghy or a kayak back to shore.

At daytime, one can wander down the walkways into beach strips. A neighboring resort is Kookoo’s Nest, run by British couple James and Nikki Ingram, who leased the beachfront from an Australian pioneer six years ago. It offers several bamboo cottages at very modest rates for budget travelers and divers who won’t mind sleeping inside mosquito nets. Sea grass fronting the stretch of coral beach is home to seahorses, while outlying rocks shelter lobsters, groupers, parrotfish, goatfish, and even the endangered Napoleon wrasse.

Hawkers from town come around to the resorts early in the morning to offer curacha crabs and tambuli, that large conch shell that served as trumpets for island forebears, and whose meat, while chewy in parts, makes for fine sashimi. 

Another European transplant (and Negros Oriental, especially Dumaguete, is full of them — running dive shops, delis and bars) is Belgian botanist Eric Hanquinet, who has set up a nursery of exotic flora on rolling terrain off Siit Bay close to Antulang Resort. He’s even established an arboretum stocked with plant specimens from all over Southeast Asia, drawing schoolchildren for regular visits. Helping him along on the project is “Aquaman” Boni Comandante, who pioneered the procedure to put live fish to sleep for export to markets abroad.

Antulang is Visayan for gumamela or hibiscus, of which the Lees’ resort is rife with varieties, including the lovely, variegated one with white-speckled leaves and flowers. Bougainvillea bushes are profuse, even cascading down the rock cliffs. Indigenous trees include the manzanita, sereguelas (that’s what it’s called here), lomboy or duhat, balayabas or wild guava, dalakit or banyan, noni, and the tigpud with fruits that are strictly for the birds.

Seven horses, including a couple of fillies, can be a treat for a group of riders, even for trotting on the beach. Rappelling, kayaking, and drift snorkeling are additional activities. Sailing on the smaller watercraft, the MB Corazon and MB Ginglay, each accommodating 20 passengers, could lead to sightings of jumping sailfish or a pod of dolphins. Divers and sanctuary snorkelers may expect to observe giant clams, razorfish, clownfish, angelfish, butterfly fish, Moorish idols, lionfish, banded sea kraits, moray eels, puffer fish, manta rays and hawkbill turtles.

Whether on land or sea, a visitor at Antulang is guaranteed enchantment, of the kind no sorcery can undo, and which stays in the mind long after the honeymoon tan is gone.

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Antulang Beach Resort is an hour’s drive from the Dumaguete airport. For reservations or inquiries, e-mail Annabelle Lee-Adriano, general manager, or Bernice Gantalao, resident manager, at info@antulang.com or all the Dumaguete booking office at (035)225-8899 and 422-2600 or 0917-700-2766. You may visit the resort’s website at www.antulang.com.