De Loro travels & tours

We arrived in Puerto Princesa and headed to the first travel agent called De Loro travels & tours.

Waiting for us there the most interesting character called Mr. Tuts with his cowboy hat (apparently his marketing strategy). He sat us down and took us through all the options for transfers to and from our hotels and tours to the underground river (one of the new 7 wonders of the world) and tours at El Nido.

We ended up purchasing all our tours for the next week from him and then they took us to their restaurant for lunch before our shuttle left for the 2 hour journey to our hotel. I must say I appreciate someone who really know how to sell his products and this guy is a master at that.

O and my personal favorite is when everything Isabel wants on the menu is out of stock. As it is she is very fineky over what she eats and drinks in Asia and countless times she had to settle for something she doesn't want. Today she ordered diet coke and fried calamari and they did not have both so she had a beer with me and tried the stuffed squid I ordered. She took one bite and passed it on to me. She then ordered a beef burger and surprise surprise it was out of stock, then she ordered a BLT sandwich and yes you guessed it out of stock too, so she had to settle for french fries. In her words "F$@ eks nou so afgepiss!" My irritation is that the restaurant like some many other establishments don't have the right change, today I dug my heals in and I said I am paying less if they can't give me the right change.

What baffles me most about these tours and others we have taken in Asia is that they basically give you a hand written invoice with a serial number and off you go. Somehow in the background this gets communicated to the tour operators and guides and we get picked up and dropped off at the right place. Very old school but it still seem to work. In this day and age of the internet it goes to show the old fashion way still works.

Looking forward to our 3 tours over the next few days. Our time on this trip is running out and we have to savour each moment. Its hard to even wrap our heads around all our cool experiences so far and I think we will look back on this trip with very fond memories for years to come.

We are so thankful for everything we have seen and learned over the last 5 months.

{Roedolf}Read more