Philippines -

t is a few hours after sunrise. I am walking over soft white sand. Splashing through turquoise shallows. And finally joining the tropical fish dancing between watery sunbeams in a deep cobalt blue sea. Ahead of me are lush, green tropical mountains, still shrouded in a morning mist, and behind wooden sailing boats on one of the best beaches in the world, White Beach on Boracay Island in the Philippines.

Named 'white bubbles' after the area's fine sand, the island was 'discovered' in the late seventies by adventurous bohemians branching out off the Asian hippy trail. They camped out on the island with the natives in traditional nipa huts. "It was a magnificent place back then," says Dita Schrottmann, now co-owner of the island's exclusive Mandala Spa, a tall, intensely handsome, pony-tailed German in a white cotton shirt left open to reveal hippie silver jewellery telling of a decade spent in California.

"Nobody had heard of it. Money was useless here – there was nowhere to spend it. The only inhabitants were fishermen trading rice and smoked fish." Dita arrived in 1978 and couldn't bring himself to leave for seven years. "It was a place you could realise your fantasies." In his case an off-shore bar serving health drinks – "and even champagne and caviar in the beginning" – where guests would arrive in a canoe paddled by an indigenous islander.

But, as with all the best 'secret' discoveries, it's difficult not to tell someone else about them and soon the island was thronging with European backpackers, then package tourists, and by the late 90s it had become the Philippines' most popular tourist destination, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year and putting the fragile ecology of the island at risk. News of sewage leaks quickly hit the travel press and the island became a no-go zone.

"It wasn't that the island was overdeveloped," says Karen Reiner, Dita's partner in both the bar and spa, "it was that the development was out of control." Herself a Filipina, she was instrumental in the setting up of the advocacy association, the Boracay Foundation, becoming its first president and liaising with the government on environmental issues. Her mission: to clean up the island.

And it's beginning to look pristine. Together the islanders are turning their adopted homeland – the only real natives are the smaller, darker ati fishing folk dotted around the island – back into the paradise it once was. A few years ago fresh water began to be pumped from the mainland, earlier this year one of only two government-run sewage plants in the Philippines become operational on the island, and in the last couple of months a garbage recycling scheme was set up.

This environmental consciousness combined with two new exclusive spas, an increasingly international array of eateries, an already renowned nightlife and the island's world famous beaches mean Boracay is reclaiming its status as an A-list destination. Added to this, visitors retain a certain sense of adventure as arriving on the island still means boarding a colourful banca wooden boat and getting your feet wet stepping ashore.

For those who make it, the island is covered with pockets of paradise and the secret now is knowing where to find them. A favourite stop-off for the Manilla glitterati since it opened as a day spa in 2001 is Mandala. And with twelve hillside villas added this year – many offering views over the verdant slopes down to the sparkling blue waters below – the spa has become a destination in itself.

Whether staying or day-tripping a Mandala-must is the Watsu, a Zen shiatsu treatment administered by Karen herself in a small pool heated to body temperature and scattered with the island's native flowers. Karen is the only qualified practitioner in Asia of this unusual form of Californian-born water dance. It's strong stuff and even non-believers are likely to find themselves in a dream-like trance as they are twirled around the pool.

Extract yourself from the many other treatments on offer and the rest of the island can be explored on foot, bicycle (rental stands are scattered along White Beach offering wheels for only 60 pesos an hour) or even horse back (just behind Friday's, past Boat Station 1 on White Beach; 288 3311) where treks away from the crowds and into the island's less-visited high tropical hills are offered on 'Boracay's Boys'.

From November to March the high winds on Bulabog beach whistle out to windsurfers around the world who hold their Asian championships here in January, while in the off season it's the ideal place to see how island life is lived away from the tourists, with fishermen spending the day painting their boats and mending their nets while their children scour the shores for precious shells.

Nearby is Tamisaan beach. "The best place on the island for snorkeling," says Jose Gelido, a resident for over fifteen years and the captain of the legendary Red Pirates sail ship known among local residents as the best island-hopping option for those who want to find their own day-long utopia. "A lot of locals don't like our name," says Jose. "They think we are crazy like the olden-day pirates but I tell them 'We are only a little crazy'".

Grinning with a saline high, he treats me to a broad white-teethed smile and a honeyed gaze as he strokes his long brown hair. Dismissing the notion the island is in anyway ruined, he throws open his arms to the coral reefs out in the sea beyond and says, "It's still a garden out there." Miming the actions of an entranced snorkeller and bobbing in time to the reggae in his bar he continues, "Sometimes it's so good even I don't want to come up."

But on most occasions he does, and apart from the odd night spent BBQ-ing seafood on a deserted cove at the end of the island everyone returns to White Beach for sundowners and a meal under the stars in not just authentic Philippine but also Italian, Indian, Portugese, German, Korean and Japanese restaurants. And the sounds of the sea are slowly replaced with the music of the bars signaling the end of another day on paradise island.