Hell Nido: Our Nightmare Boat Incident in the Philippines

Background

I will always share honest opinions of travel. That includes the 99% of positives on the road, as well as the 1% of negatives. This story was originally shared in my post on visiting the Philippines. However, I have a separate section of my blog detailing the things which go wrong. And that is exactly what happened in El Nido.

This is something that many travel content creators will omit in favour of the glossy beach pictures and perfectly curated paradise images.

Therefore, read on if you want to hear about how a budget boat tour almost ended in disaster.

Easily one of my worst travel experiences to date.

Welcome to Hell Nido

We expected a knock at the door at 5am, for our van transport from Puerto Princesa to El Nido. However we were rudely awakened by loud bangs on our door at 4am.

Annoyed, we were reluctant to get out of bed having only arrived around 4 hours previously.

And yes, our van was a whole hour early.

Well it’s better than being an hour late… I guess?

Bleary-eyed and frustrated we gathered our belongings in a hurry ready for the bumpy ride to, errrrr “paradise”…

Six tiring and uncomfortable hours later and there we were in this godforsaken haven of desolation and misery.

One thing I will never do is shy away from the negatives of travel, alongside the positives. Whilst travel is 95% incredible experiences, it is also 5% bad experiences ranging from minor logistical hiccups to pretty nasty stuff such as the time I almost got mugged in Ecuador.

The same applies to destinations. For every heavenly utopia, you will also discover some rather underwhelming places, to put it lightly.

Content creators will often tell you only half the story, fearing negative feedback will upset their followers and harm their brand. I will only share real life authentic experiences regardless of whether they’re good or bad.

Starting as we Mean to go on

Our first impressions of Hell Nido (as we ended up calling it) were, as you’ve perhaps guessed, not positive.

For a place with so much tourist hype, it clearly hasn’t caught up with demand yet.

El Nido is surprisingly underdeveloped. As our Booking dot com research had revealed, there are few budget options beyond ramshackle bug burrows.

The shops are generally small and offer little with the exception of the larger Prince Hypermart. More about that place later…

One negative out of our control was the weather. Gloomy for all three days we spent there, alternating from dull and overcast to torrential downpours.

I try to picture the beaches in better weather than we experienced, but they didn’t seem any more impressive than those in other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand or Vietnam.

The nightlife isn’t terrible but it isn’t great either. There are a few bars near the beach. They’re okay, but nothing to write home about.

After a couple of beers in one such establishment we retreated for a much needed sleep, hopefully without a premature awakening.

Exploring El Nido… or at Least Trying

On our first full day, we wanted to walk to Corong Corong Beach. Naturally, the weather scuppered our plans. After dashing to a shop in an attempt to see out the storms, we eventually retreated back to the hotel without making it to the beach. We figured it wouldn’t be worth seeing with the dark skies and sodden surroundings.

In the afternoon we went hunting for boat tours to see the sights which make El Nido so desirable.

Frustrated with the options found, we eventually booked online although it seemed the website we booked through worked with local companies and we ended up with one which I won’t name, despite the temptation.

We found their office and paid the remainder of the deposit. They gave us instructions on where to meet the following day, and we were set.

Perhaps should’ve looked at online reviews first and seen this company’s sole review being a scathing one-star essay…

A Day of Disaster

The morning arrived. I had little sleep having woken and worried about what this tour would bring. For some reason I had a bad feeling…

We walked down to the beach and after navigating some amateur logistics which did nothing to alleviate my negative feelings, we sat down and waited for the boat.

At this point my girlfriend turned to me and said “I have a very bad feeling about this”. She questioned whether we should get on the boat at all claiming she would quite happily walk away and lose the near-$50 we had spent on this.

I tried my best to reassure her. After all, this was exactly her dream activity. Beaches, water and snorkelling. Apprehensive or not, I felt the need to reassure her that it would be fine and nothing would go wrong…

Bad boyfriend…

And off we went. Predictably the heavens opened within minutes, and the freezing rain constantly lashed across our skin. The ramshackle boat, which appeared to have been built as part of a school technology project, sailed off away from the mainland.

We stopped at our first beach for an hour. The rain hammering down harder than ever. What little shelter there was on the island provided cover, but prevented us from exploring.

The El Nido Boat Disaster

After a disappointing first stop we sailed onwards, we found a cave spot which the boat approached during a rare moment without rain.

But then, the engine spluttered and came to a halt. Not everyone seemed to notice as many of the tour group were distracted by the cave.

Many minutes passed, and we didn’t move. One member of staff opened up a hatch in the floor to access the engine and, unsuccessfully, played around with a few things.

The captain made a phone call. Whilst we shared no common language, it was clear what he was doing. I was slightly surprised he had signal here, but he spoke for long enough to convince me he had indeed made contact with another human being.

The crew never told us there was a problem. Instead the boat slowly drifted out towards the sea whilst we waited for movement.

An hour passed, and we were still stuck. The crew eventually made the most of this time by cooking the lunch we had been promised with the tour.

They had all been swimming in the sea, failed to wash their hands, and touched the very food we would soon share with them.

In one man’s case, his hands were jet black having touched oil whilst attempting to fix the engine.

I’m not sure what nutritional value oil provides, but he was keen to add it to the buffet being served up as he touched our food without a second thought.

Not Quite a Michelin Star Meal

Lunch came and my rather-more-sensible girlfriend decided not to touch it having seen numerous hygiene offences committed in the preparation process.

My feeling of hunger overrode that of common sense and I decided to carefully cherrypick a few warmer food items that had (hopefully) been heated enough to boil the bacteria.

After a few mouthfuls I came to my senses and realised I shouldn’t be doing this. It was time to focus on damage limitation and stop eating the food where all hygiene precautions were sacrificed in favour of making the buffet look Instagram-friendly.

Our El Nido Nightmare got Worse

The rain came back with a vengeance. Rain turned to hail and before we knew it, dozens of ice-cold hailstones lashed across our backs causing pain with each and every impact.

I wrapped my arms around my girlfriend who struggled in these brutal conditions. I shivered as the temperature plummeted with dozens of painful ice daggers slashing my bare back with every second that passed.

An eternity passed before the arctic inferno began to subside. Lunch was over and the worst of the weather had passed. Yet we were still stranded and freezing cold with little desire to carry on with the tour.

As we continued to wait, the tour group began to quell the boredom by grabbing snorkel masks and exploring what was below the surface.

Fish and… not much else. One positive however was that the sea was surprisingly warm. A welcome respite after the punishing hail.

We waited and waited and snorkelled some more, before sitting back down in the boat. My girlfriend felt unwell and didn’t want to continue with the tour.

Finally a mirage appeared in the distance. We weren’t hallucinating, surely???

Saved at Last

No! It was a boat! And it was headed right towards us.

After so long we lost track of the time. Maybe two hours, maybe more. But that didn’t matter, we were finally being saved.

After stepping onto the rescue boat, there was only one thing on our minds. “I take it we’re heading straight back now?” Nope. The crew had only one thing on their minds, and that was to continue the tour. Anything to wriggle out of a potential refund I guess…

My girlfriend still felt unwell and was struggling, whilst the rest of the tour group appeared dejected and bemused.

Yet short of hijacking the boat, there was nothing we could do.

Off we went to more beaches, more islands and much more rain. They made sure every island on the itinerary was visited despite the wishes of the paying customers. But they did cut off the snorkelling we had been promised, a key selling point of the tour in the first place. Instead we just had to settle for the impromptu snorkelling session whilst the boat was stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Finally, we made it back. And our nightmare day was over…

Haha, you didn’t really believe that, right?

Travel Builds Resilience

This day has certainly not been what was planned whilst visiting the Philippines. However our nightmare day was not quite over just yet despite overcoming the worst of it.

Upon arrival we marched straight to the tour company’s office, believing they would be opened for another hour. However we got there and it was closed.

My bare feet shredded from the sharp terrain, it was time to head back defeated.

With just a ten minute walk to our guesthouse, nothing else could possibly go wrong. There was still time for yet more misery.

The heavens opened once again and more ice-cold torrential rain came down much to my bemusement.

Soaking wet we finally made it back for much-needed showers and rest. As the skies plunged into darkness, befitting of our nightmare in Hell Nido, we decided to relax with a much-needed beer each.

So to the supermarket I went, bringing back a bottle of San Miguel (the Filipino version) each.

At least we’d used up our quota of bad luck for the day and would be able to enjoy these in peace…

Even Our Beers Could Not Escape the Wrath of El Nido

Oh.

We cracked open the beers and started drinking without even looking at the bottles.

They tasted vile.

On the rim of the bottles was some disgusting substance we never quite got to the bottom of. A rusty yellowy-brown colour it smelt of rusty metal.

Instantly, we spat the beers out and marched straight back to Prince Hypermart. We told customer service exactly what happened and they said we could replace the beers with a like-for-like replacement. Fair enough.

Only we inspected the bottles a little more closely this time, and realised they all had this problem.

The staff said we could swap the beers for something else, providing it was the same price. These two beers combined cost around 90 pesos ($3). Fed up, and unable to find any beers for the exact same price, we grabbed a carton of pineapple juice.

And finally our bad day was ov… oh, scratch that once again.

One Final Test from El Nido

The pineapple juice cost 89 pesos, meaning we were getting something worth less than what we paid in return for the beers. Fair enough, we couldn’t care less about 1 peso.

Yet the supermarket refused to sanction this swap. Whatever we got in return for the beers has to be EXACTLY the same price. The fact they were benefiting (by such a minor amount) made no difference.

And my girlfriend argued passionately against this nonsense as I wondered how this day could possibly be as awful as it was.

Finally… finally a win. We got the pineapple juice in return after my girlfriend’s willingness to fight.

Off we went back to the hotel, and booked our escape from Hell Nido.

Now for the biggest shock of all on this challenging day…

We made it to bed without another incident, and counted down the hours to our exit from this awful place.

The Philippines is statistically home to some of Southeast Asia’s safest cities, but Hell Nido felt a far cry from those.