What Our Guests Say About Us

We asked Vi to prepare quite a few dishes since we really wanted to try a wide assortment of Vietnamese cuisine. She accommodated our request for five people! Vi seems like a very experienced host as she told us about her previous tour guide experience. We really cherished the authenticity of the experience as it involved cooking in her apartment where we met her husband and daughter. She was even kind enough to provide us with Tupperware boxes to take our self made food home. We really enjoyed cooking and eating these delicious dishes!

Vi  and Linh is a very accommodating and enthusiastic hosts, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time learning about Vietnamese culture and cuisine from them. They were also very generous with the sightseeing tips in and around Ho Chi Minh too! Highly recommended!

We highly recommend Lose The Tie Tour, we had an amazing day at the Cu Chi tunnels.
Vi was a brilliant and informative tour guide and took us through a detailed history of the tunnels.
We were also treated to an authentic Vietnamese lunch after the tour which was wonderful!
We really enjoyed the tour so if you are thinking of visiting the Cu Chi tunnels give Vi a call.
Thank you Vi 🙂

We found Vi, via Airbnb, my sister and I wanted to take a cookery class before leaving Vietnam. Vi was quick to answer questions that we had before booking and made an adaption to accommadate our tastes. Vi was great, she even ordered our grab taxi so we could get there.

Our evening spent with Vi and her family was interesting and informative, we were made to feel so welcome. The food we cooked and ate readily was so tasty and new for us. I cannot recommend this experience enough. Vi has since sent us the recipes so that we can make them now we are home. If I’m back in HCMC I will book again, it would feel like an evening with a good friend. Thank you Vi and all the family. Hopefully we’ll recreate some of the dishes when we have a Vietnamese night in the UK.

屋主非常热情好客，带我游览了他的屋顶花园，让我认识到很多做菜用的植物，三个多小时的时间过得很快一点都不枯燥，最重要的是知道了牛肉粉的汤是如何熬制的，越南美食真的很健康，课程结束还亲自我送下楼帮我叫车。对了屋主正在学习中文还有微信，我加了她微信后来在越南的旅行真的帮了我很多。如果对越南菜感兴趣不妨来试试吧

On my first trip to Saigon 3 years ago Vi was our tour guide, so when my sister and I decided to to head to Saigon for a girls trip I contacted Vi again. Unfortunately no tour but I did sign up for her cooking class. My sister wanted to learn to cook Pho so Vi indulged us and when we arrived proceeded first hand in the art of making Pho. In addition we learned how to do simple rice paper spring rolls ( rolling is not as easy as it looks) and a wonderful clean fresh green mango salad – yummmm. Joining us in our cooking class was our tour guides Spring and Hieu – (highly recommended for your local tour of Saigon – vutronghieu248@gmail.com). Lots of fun, good food and of course we took our winewith Vi and her beautiful family!

We booked the wrong date for our cooking class but it was easy to change it with Vi. We had a great time at the modern appartement and were able to cook in a comfortable and cozy atmosphere. Vi taught us a lot about cooking and even the origins of vietnamese food. I can only recommend it to anybody, especially cooking beginners

Just returned from Vietnam and we had the opportunity to go into the Mekong delta off the beaten path. Our guide Vi was both engaging and very informative of the trip but also all aspects of local Vietnamese ways of life and traditions .We ventured deep into the Mekong delta along cycle paths and narrow channels rowing past coconut trees and palms .Enjoyed local market ,where Vi explained all the different types of foods available and local dishes that are made up from the ingredients ,had a try making pancakes ,ps not a chef .Enjoyed lovely lunch .Thoroughly enjoyed day out ,would highly recommend Vi ,who offers other ventures in the area and much further afield . Our trip was well catered and cared for ,excellent organisation of various parties to make our trip run smoothly .big thanks again Vi .thanks David and Gill

1. Tour guide: Was the tour guide nice and informative? Did the guide speak understandable English?
—> Ahn was fantastic!! She was extremely informative and spoke a very good english!
2. Restaurant: Was the restaurant nice and comfortable? How about the food? Restaurant and food was good!
3. Itinerary: Do you think that the itinerary let you enjoy most of the tour? Ahn made a great suggestion to pick us up at 7am and it’s a good thing because when we got to the tunnels there were no tourists (very private tour!)
4. Pickup: Was the pickup easy for you? Was the customer service responsive and helpful? Pickup was great – Ahn was perfectly on time!
* In general, did you enjoy the tour? Do you think that it values for what you paid? Amazing tour and perfect value!
* Do you think what we should do to improve our service? We don’t have any recommendations – Ahn even walked ya back to our hotel as we did not want to be in the car and the museum was quite near our hotel – great service!!
* Will you recommend this tour to your friends? I will absolutely recommend this tour!!!
Day of visit: April 24 2019

Yes, Bao was great! Very friendly and personable. He answered all my questions and more. The car and the driver were both great as well. We ate at a family’s home and the food was delicious. I was very full afterward. The family was very friendly as well. The itinerary was perfect. I wanted a non-touristy tour and i definitely got one. I was the only one there! It was a great value and I’d definitely recommend it to my friends. Thank you for showing me a little part of your great country.
Day of visit: May 29th 2019

1. Tour guide was friendly and very accomodative. Welcome us very warmly
2. Car was clean and comfortable. Driving was safe
3. Restaurant that we had breakfast and lunch was nice and clean. Very satisfying.
4. Yes the itinerary was well done. We enjoyed the day
5. Yes, the pickup was right at our apartment. Very convenient.
We throughly enjoyed our tour. Highly recommended. ?
Day of experience: May 31st 2019

From the time we booked this trip with Vi, communication was ongoing and up to date. The Mekong Delta tour is an excellent way to see local people going about their daily lives first hand. Every effort is made to make this a day to remember, from a trip to a local market to buy mangosteen and dragon fruit, visiting coconut manufacturing and processing businesses, lunch at the home of a local family, river rides and sharing local hospitality, an experience to treasure. Vi shared photos taken on the day and recommended places for dinner when we returned to our hotel. The bonus to organising a trip ‘with a local’ is that you share so much about your own culture and find out more about the Vietnamese way of life. Thank you!

1. Tour guide: Was the tour guide nice and informative? Did he speak understandable English?
Long was amazing! He was so knowledgeable and he primed us well for the trip going into great depths about the history of Vietnam. I really loved this – he is passionate about Vietnam and it is palpable.

2. Car: Was the car clean and comfortable? Was the driver driving safely?
Yes car was adequate for post-tour napping so we were very comfortable.

3. Restaurant: Was the restaurant nice and comfortable? How about the food?
Such a great experience. We do wish that more of a drink allowance was allotted in the late afternoon but other than that the food and experience of cooking with a local family was so beautiful!

4. Itinerary: Do you think that the itinerary let you enjoy most of the day?
Yes – 100%, we were able to see and do so much.
* In general, did you enjoy the tour? Do you think that it values for what you paid?
Yes, my favourite part was the slow boat ride down the Mekong, it was a nice way to reflect about the conversation with Long and the days events.
* Do you think what we should do to improve our service?
You guys were so responsive – I appreciate you finding the error in the payment and I only wish for more things to do and maybe more interactions with the locals instead of simply witnessing. Broom-weaving perhaps? Coconut recipes?
* Will you recommend this tour to your friends?
Oh yes, you guys are FANTASTIC

It was truly one of the greatest trips I’ve been on while traveling in Vietnam ❤
I‘m more than happy to give some feedback:

1. Hieu was one of the best tour guides I‘ve met during my travels. He was very friendly, engaging and knowledgeable and made everyone feel welcome right from the start. He truly went out and beyond to make the trip as memorable as possible for each and every one of us. His English was perfect as well. His girlfriend Spring who accompanied the tour to take pictures was very lovely too and it was a pleasure to meet her. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better tour guide!

2. The food on the tour was incredible. We got to try tasty fruit and coconut and the lunch we were served was incredible. Everything we ate was delicious!

3. The itinerary of the tour was perfect. It was a great mix of everything. I enjoyed all the different activities, the boat ride was stunning and the transportation on the island with scooters was so much fun. I loved that we truly were away from all the other tourists and got to see and experience a bit of true Mekong Delta life.

4. The pick up was great too. Perfectly on time and everyone was very welcoming from the start. The driver was very nice too. The customer service before the tour was great as well – very quick and easy communication.

All in all, the Mekong Delta tour was one of the best trips I‘ve gone on while in Vietnam. I‘m very happy that I picked your company as everything was perfect. I‘ll definitely recommend the tour to others and it is more than worth the money you spend. Thank you again for this wonderful experience!

Greetings,
Lea

Guide RAM was great and wonderful guide. He has provided a lot of interesting information about the Mekong Delta and Vietnamese life.
He spoke very clearly and comprehensibly. He was interested in our country and told us a lot about Vietnam, his people and other things.
The whole tour was very interesting and we are very excited to have chosen your company.
Food was great. We really didn’t expect to be home-cooked. That’s why we were pleasantly surprised that we could taste the real dishes of that region, not all tourists, but only our group.
The guide took us from the hotel and after the excursion also escorted directly to the hotel and we didn’t need to think of anything more than to enjoy the perfect day.
Especially like the fact that there were no tourists on the island, only our group. We really liked it wasn’t other tourist groups and the whole route was non-tourist but authentic and it was exactly what we wanted.
The tour is definitely worth the money we paid and we will definitely recommend this tour to our friends.
Special greetings to RAM from our group.
Thank you very much.

Our group of 8 had a wonderful day with our tour guide, Long. We saw a real coconut farm (with no souvenirs). We rode in an air conditioned van, a ferry, and each of us on the back of a motorbike with a driver on an island with no cars. We saw how locals lived. We watched brooms being made. We had a ride on a sampam down one of the canals through the jungle. Our home cooked lunch was so good and cooked by a local lady with hammocks to rest after eating. It was a fantastic day. We were on a Viking Ocean cruise and were picked up at the port.

My 14-year-old son and I have traveled to 10 countries to study the Cold War this year, so we’ve worked with a LOT of tour guides, and Vi and her team are among the very best we’ve had anywhere. I can recommend them with no reservations whatsoever. As Ho Chi Minh City was the last stop on our last trip, we had fallen behind and started planning just over a week before we arrived. I was so lucky to find this company to work with! Vi was speedy in her responses, asked all the right questions, and even with the short timeline, listened carefully to our requests as she customized non-tourist-y, private tours that would help us in our study and indulge our love of adventure (and secondarily, delicious food!). We originally booked with Vi for two tours, but after our first day, we realized that working with her guides multiplied what we could get out of each day and asked for Vi’s suggestions of tours for our other two days. The guides met and dropped us at our District 3 homestay, were always on time, had done their research about our special interests and brought supplemental materials to share, were clear about plans, and were all great conversationalists with excellent English and a wide knowledge of both Vietnamese and world culture, so we could do a lot of compare-contrast and culture-sharing. Street-food vendors or restaurants we tried were carefully selected both for quality and safety; our air-conditioned, comfortable cars often had WiFi and always lots of bottles of cold water! After having worked with guides in six Vietnamese cities as well as in nine other countries, I thought the rates were quite reasonable given the level of service, customization, attention, communicative skill, enthusiasm, and talent her guides offered. Vi suggested several small-group tours to help us save money, but we chose to work privately because we always have so many questions, and she didn’t question either choice. Outside of the major museums, which are always busy, on these tours we only rarely saw other tourists; we were grateful that Vi and her guides listened when we said we weren’t interested in shopping, though had we said the opposite, I know they would have found us the best local places for whatever we were seeking.

To give more detail: in the end we did two half-day tours and two full-day tours. (On the full day tours we took her suggestion and started very early, 7am, to avoid the worst of the afternoon heat, and were thrilled we had; it also gave us time for a siesta before evening activities on our own). Ram, who was energetic and inquisitive, started our visit with fabulous evening food tour through lots of hidden neighborhoods: not only were we tasting all kinds of flavors, he introduced us to the people who made them, learned their and the food’s histories, and even got to try our hand at making several dishes! The next day “Small” Vy took us on a very insider tour of sites to teach us about the Vietnamese experience of the conflict with the US, both museums as well as less-obvious locations around the city that played a part in the conflict. Vy was cheerful and fun but talked about the war with honesty and sensitivity; she broke up the heaviness of the war discussion with glimpses of the city’s pleasures today: vibrant markets, a chic coffee shop, beautiful temples. The next afternoon we went on a private tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels with Thong, who really connected with my son; he gave us a lot of extra information which brought the visit to vivid (and sometimes legitimately frightening) life. Our final day, “Small” Vy returned and brought us to the Mekong delta to visit coconut and palm production sites; escort us to a private home to meet the family over local fruit and pandan tea; cruise in a sampan along palm-lined canals; and learn to cook local dishes in a lush homestay garden overlooking the river. We were honored when Vi herself invited us to watch the Reunification Day fireworks with her family, which was such a pleasant and personal experience.

I would work with Vi and her guides again in an instant, and hope I’ll get the chance soon! I’ve already suggested to other family members that they work with her on an upcoming visit to SE Asia.

We thoroughly loved everything about your tour. Our guide was wonderful, so nice and friendly and very knowledgeable. Bao really went the extra mile is giving us 3 the best time today on my Daughter’s Birthday. It was really value for money and the families that hosted us we absolutely wonderful. We got a good taste of what the Vietemese people are like. The food was superb and so tastey. The driver was very good driver and the car was very clean. We loved every moment of the day. Fantastic value for the money spent. We will tell our South African friends about this company. Bridgit, Rob and Jenna Lambert

We spent a fantastic day with Daisy and Long exploring the Mekong Delta. We learned so much about Vietnam and the culture. Every where we were taken to by Daisy was a new experience for us and it was a joy to be away from the usual tourist route! Daisy is a fountain of information and a fabulous tour guide and Long is a superb photographer with loads of photo tips! Thanks again for a wonderful day!

The Simes Family

With my son and his wife I spent 2 days in the Mekong Delta with our guide Long. We were very happy to avoid the most touristy spots and see local craftsmen and people and to stay in a homestay so that we gained an insight into local life. Long spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable about local culture and good company. We enjoyed some very tasty local food as well. I can thoroughly recommend this trip to anyone who enjoys sharing local life and accommodation.
Bill Burlton, Northumberland UK.

My and my mate decided to spend a day in Cu Chi tunnel area without hassle and large crowds to follow. See, we are from Finland where common culture is a bit reserved when it comes to chit chatting or excessive small talk (= anything over 1-2 sentences). That’s why I selected Vi @ Lose the Tie Tour.

Booked the tour via 3rd party website. All the necessary info available, easy payment with CC or PayPal. Picked the suggested departure at 09:00 from our hotel. Vi contacted us via e-mail and proposed earlier or later time to avoid peak hour(s).

This was a good advice, as there were dozens of busses leaving when we arrived to Cu Chi site. She has select vendors to provide transportation, which was an extra bonus, i.e. air-conditioned minivan driven by young but skilled and polite person.

Vi is energetic, knowledgeable and have a good sense of humour. She knows everything about the subject plus tons of interesting details on local culture without sounding boring or overly heavy, even though the matter is deadly serious.

Also, She has good knowledge of various cultures and people around the world, having travelled many countries in the East and West. If you happen to know BBC’s grandiose 10 episode series “The Vietnam War”, Vi is embodiment of this calibre of wisdom.

Besides a thorough recap of history we received much needed information on local culture and habits, from educational systems to lifestyle and national production, not forgetting the best restaurants near our hotel (Grand Hotel Saigon).

Truth be told, Cu Chi needs an expert like Vi to unfold and become something more than just a monument. It’s a cliche but history comes alive when you hear in depth stories.

She is accurate, timely, knowledgeable, funny, educated and courteous.

Will I rely on her expertise again? Absolutely. Next time Mekong Delta.

We spent two fantastic days with Mai, who works with Vi … one at Cu Chi tunnel , and one at Mekong Delta.

Both days were exceptional!

Mai, who is in law school, has a great mastery of the history of the country. Her insights both days were highly insightful.

In addition, we genuinely enjoyed meeting Mai. She was smart, funny, engaging and had great communication skills.

We will keep in touch with her!

As a side note, we also met Vi after the second day. She was also warm and engaging.

You will be delighted if you make the decision to have either of this dynamic duo show you this unique and fascinating country.

Traveling with our 2 boys (8 and 5) we booked a two day private tour with Vi after coming across her great reviews, and agreed on spending a day around the Cu Chi VC tunnels and HMC itself, and a day on the Mekong Delta ‘off the beaten track’.
We met Long (our tour guide) on the first morning around 7am, and immediately knew we are up for a real treat. Long was knowledgeable, open, funny and great with the kids who loved every min of these two long days.
Everything was planned and timed perfectly, we got to learn A LOT about local people, culture and history. While we were able to beat the crowds on the first day at the tunnels and enjoy a very personal experience, the second day at the Mekong was really off the beaten track, full of thoughtful surprises among locals, boats, bikes, tuk-tuk, and more – which kept the whole four of us engaged at all times.
To conclude, we met with Vi and her family for dinner, and had the opportunity to end as real friends.
We couldn’t recommend Vi and Long more!! This is a must if you are in town, and two days we will remember with a smile for a very long time.