Private Street Food Tour by scooters with girl drivers.

We went on the food tour with Lao got to eat different kinds of food that we would have never known about or dared to try! He took us to local places that no tourist would visit and gave us an awesome experience of the real street food of Ho Chi Minh city. He also shared a few very interesting insights about life in the city. Overall a great experience, highly recommended for food enthusiasts!

We ended up abandoning our "tour guide" along with another couple, because we spent 40+ minutes walking around the backstreets of the city, and didn't stop at a single place for food. The guide kept pointing out it was because of the Tet holiday, but why didn't he know which places would be opened/closed or even check in advance? Not very knowledgable or professional! Prior to this, we had already spent 20 minutes walking to the meeting point, which was a random street corner about 20 minutes walk away from Ben Thanh Market (where many of the tourist hotels are). The tour guide was 10 minutes late, so ourselves and another couple were left wondering if we were in the right place. Glad we decided to get chatting and confirm it was. The guide then proceeded to take us down an ominous-looking ally-way and disappeared for a further 5 minutes. Not a great start! The guide also failed to explain what and where the food was that we would be eating. By this point I was already losing confidence. Simply put this guy should not be a tour guide due to his incompetence. At least he gave us an instant cash refund when we voiced our dissatisfaction. If you don't think places are going to be open over Tet, don't take bookings in future? If you are in Vietnam and plan to do a food tour, book the below tour in Hanoi (and ask for Jenny). She is a real tour guide/foodie and really knows her stuff! I gave her a 5-star review! Professional, knowledgeable and friendly. https://www.tripadvisor.com/AttractionProductReview-g293924-d12878612-Small_Group_Hanoi_Street_Food_Tour_with_a_Real_Foodie-Hanoi.html

Firstly, It was super difficult to locate the guide. We were at the given address and the guide was nowhere in sight. A local (who happened to be at the curb on a scooter with a name list who appeared to be a guide but was not) was kind enough to take my wife and I on the back of his scooter to find the address. We traveled two block away, after asking locals, returned to the same spot (Was this a scam to get some money off us?). Finally found our guide waiting in a ally behind the given address. We suggested he pick a better address and landmark for the future tours. The guide wasn't every engaging overall. Did not appear very enthusiastic. Didn't talk much. Tour overall was OK. This was a paid tour so our expectations are higher. We had some free food tours (just needed to pay for the guides share of food which is not much) and they were very much better. The variety of local foods was good; therefore, the 3 stars. Would I recommend it? Unfortunatley, no