Fursal Hotel, Palawan: Booking a Secret Tour
We arrived early yesterday morning, couldn't even catch a taxi at the airport, and barely made it here by paying another hotel's shuttle driver. It was completely my mistake. I didn't realize this was such a small town and hadn't looked into an airport pickup bus, which left me dead tired. My original plan was to go snorkeling in the ocean today and see the Underground River tomorrow, which is a must-see in this area. But as I woke up groggy and searched online while eating, I found out that you supposedly can't join the tours unless you book them in advance from Korea. What? There are barely any people in this tiny town, so what is this nonsense?! I finally managed to come here on vacation, only to face the possibility of being stuck in my hotel room because I couldn't do any tours...
While eating breakfast, we tried to come up with a backup plan but couldn't find a solution, so we decided to just head back to our room. On our way back, a travel agency caught my eye. Seriously, this agency is the only amenity sitting right in the middle of this tiny hotel, so how did I miss it? However, it was too early, and they hadn't opened yet. Just then, someone quietly approached us—let's call him 'Robert' (a pseudonym). Robert is an employee here, and he told us that if we booked through him instead of the travel agency, he would give us a much cheaper price. You have to be careful about these things in the Philippines, so we hesitated for a while. But since we didn't exactly have any other options, we booked both the snorkeling and Underground River tours with Robert. Naturally, cards weren't accepted; it had to be straight cash. Our conversation played out like a spy movie. He knocked on our door saying, "Room service~," came inside, and explained the price and who we needed to meet and when. If he had acted completely smooth and nonchalant, I probably would have trusted him less. But seeing him constantly looking over his shoulder, terrified of getting caught by his boss and wanting to get back to work as quickly as possible, actually put me at ease. At the very least, it didn't seem like he was going to run off with our money.
It was only slightly cheaper than the prices I found on the internet, but I was just relieved that we could actually go on our trip. Of course, there was still a bit of anxiety lingering in the back of my mind, but what could I do? It was my own fault for coming unprepared.