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Like Bombay, Bangkok and Jakarta, Manila conforms to many standard criteria for developing cities in Asia. Stepping out of the cool marble foyer of The Manila Diamond, I was slapped in the face by the solid air, stifled by a suffocating cocktail of high humidity and carbon monoxide emissions which mingled with a distillation of rotting fruit, flowering frangipani and stale urine. The traffic congestion was quite astounding, making my short forays from the air-conditioned comfort of the hotel seem increasingly daunting. When I found myself on a ten-seater twin-propeller plane, bouncing between the thermals above Manila's sprawling suburbs and en route to somewhere called Club Paradise, I felt such a palpable sense of relief that I fell fast asleep.

I woke to breath-taking views of the Busuanga Islands, a collection of perfect palm-fringed little splodges, surrounded by bands of dazzling white and electric blue, like giant pulsating jellyfish. Home to some of the best diving in the Philippines, the islands lie scattered off the north coast of Palawan, considered to be the country's last frontier and one of the few areas to have implemented a successful conservation policy. The ruthless exploitation of the country's forests, through commercial logging and kaingin farming - a form of slash-and-burn agriculture - has denuded vast areas, triggering widespread soil erosion and climatic changes. It was not until 1991, when the town of Ormoc was wiped out by the flooding from a typhoon, that politicians were shaken from complacency. Puerto Princessa, the capital of Palawan, has since set a precedent for improving the country's environmental record, winning numerous awards as a "green city"; laws are so strictly enforced that throwing a cigarette butt onto the street can incur an on-the-spot fine.

Landing at a small airstrip in the north of Busuanga itself, we transferred to a jeepney, the basis of public transport in the Philippines. Decorated with sheets of gleaming polished chrome and tiers of mirrors, lights and day-glo stickers, the jeepney is essentially a customised US army jeep, with an extra two metres welded into the wheelbase. After a half hour journey through a cattle ranch, and a five minute walk through the mangroves, we boarded a banca, a traditional boat with wooden outriggers, which would take us to Club Paradise, an exclusive resort on Dimakya Island.

Bordered by seven hundred metres of squeaky white sand, the fifty acre island is home to Calamian deer, monitor lizards and a variety of birds, while the surrounding reef is teeming with brilliant coral and sponges, pawikan sea turtles, giant clams and reef sharks. Being a traumatised member of the Jaws generation, swimming in the sea has been a haunting experience since I was ten years old. Shark-paranoia is never far from my mind when snorkelling over coral reefs in tropical waters. Seeing a four foot reef shark on my first day at Dimakya, finally helped to overcome these lingering fears; the sight of its sweeping tail in the big deep blue below me, produced more adrenalin-buzzed excitement than panic-stricken terror. The abundance of sea-grass provides a perfect feeding area for the dugong, or sea-cow, a lumbering prehistoric beast which is the largest herbivorous sea-mammal and delightfully harmless. The islands are also renowned for shipwrecks and qualified divers can explore the sunken remains of the Kyokuzan Maru, a Japanese battleship destroyed in the Second World War.

Despite a seemingly rich marine eco-system, the area has not escaped the ravages of Filipino fishermen who, in recent years, cast aside their traditional nets and harpoons in favour of more direct results achieved through the use of dynamite and cyanide. Dynamite fishing has, quite literally, blown whole reefs to smithereens. The sea-bed in some areas is littered with the skeletal remains of splintered coral. The problem has been compounded in recent years by wealthy gourmets in Hong Kong and Japan developing a penchant for eating large fish like grouper, fresh from tanks in the restaurant. By dumping barrels of cyanide over the reefs, the fishermen are able to stun the large fish without killing them, bundle them into glass containers and dispatch them to Hong Kong or Tokyo at enormous profit. At the same time, they manage to wipe out all other marine life, including miles and miles of coral which takes thousands of years to grow. Marine biologists have since proved that widespread devastation of coral reefs is having a direct impact on the global climate.

Club Paradise is comprised of forty beach-front cottages, discreetly hidden by the surrounding vegetation. My hammock, made from thick woven strips of rattan, was infinitely more comfortable than it appeared and proved ideal for watching the explosive pink sunsets from the privacy of my verandah. The cottages, bar and restaurant are tastefully constructed from local hardwoods, then covered with nipa, a traditional thatch of dried palm fronds. The buffet provides that standard hotel formula of "international cuisine", whatever that is, but anybody with a gastronomic bent should be warned about much of the food in the Philippines - unless they need to lose weight fast. The culinary highlight of my stay however, was a whole roast suckling pig, covered in acres of crackling, slowly roasting over an open fire on the beach.

For those in need of fine food and wine, able to travel unencumbered by budgetary restraints - or happy to throw caution to the wind and re-mortgage the house - then the answer is simple: head straight for Amanpulo, the jewel in the crown of the Aman empire. While I was roughing it at Club Paradise, the young and wealthy elite from Manila's Makati district were descending on Amanpulo for a wedding. The groom had booked the whole island, for a mere $50,000 a night. Until I saw the James Bond-style sophistication of Amankila in Bali, I had no idea that hotels like this even existed. These are places that exist in another realm; a level of such refined comfort that everybody seems to glide around without touching the floor. If you have the inclination, and don't mind rubbing shoulders with the likes of Robert de Niro, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, then Amanpulo should just about make the grade. However, for the pinnacle in opulent privacy, contact Island Villas in Manila. Justin Tooth, an enterprising young English banker, has recently launched this small company, renting luxurious private villas; all are fully staffed, most have private beaches and some come with boats. A four bedroom villa, like Leku Eder, includes a cook, a butler, a driver, a twelve metre boat and a skipper. Owned and decorated by one of Manila's top designers, Leku Eder has been much praised for an exquisite sense of style. When compared to Amanpulo, a villa like this seems a bargain destination for millennial excess.

For the most surreal experience in the area, head for the island of Calauit, a bizarre testament to the unbridled extravagance of the Marcos years. While Imelda was stocking up on new shoes, Ferdinand thought it would be nice to import a few animals from east Africa and let them loose on one of his seven thousand islands. He chose Calauit, off the north-west tip of Busuanga, where hundreds of giraffes, zebras, antelopes and impala are now wandering around feeling rather lost. (The rumour in Manila is that, rather than being a controlled scientific experiment, Calauit was to be a playground for Marcos's son, nicknamed Bong Bong, who had developed an insatiable craving for shooting large animals.)

Visiting the island is not dissimilar to an African safari. We were bundled into the back of an open truck, then bounced over potholes for an hour in pursuit of the animals. However, rather than being surrounded by the endless expanse of the bush, under the vast open canopy of an African sky, it felt more like a land that time forgot, a sort of isolated evolutionary quirk. Bewildered zebras roam around, looking even more mythical than unicorns, while a few stunted giraffes nibble at the alien vegetation. Bushbuck and Impala graze alongside the indigenous Calamian Deer, while endangered species from Palawan, like the Bearcat, a sort of overgrown possum, are confined to cages.

We returned to Club Paradise, the sky slowly turning into a blazing pink furnace as the banca sliced through the surrounding opalescence. Back at the bar, a team of bare-chested over-weight Taiwanese divers were discussing their close encounter with a reef shark, the dimensions of which seemed to double with every round of cocktails. I strolled back down the beach, watching flying fish break the surface of the water, creating intricate patterns of expanding ripples in the fading light, before settling into my hammock to watch the final crescendo of melting gold disperse along the horizon. Then the stars appeared, pinprick holes of light in black velvet sky, as the orchestral sound of several thousand insects filled the night air. It was hard to believe that cities like Manila even existed.

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