In Leh, the main city of Ladakh in India's far north, the Vietnamese restaurant 'Saigon BBQ & Hotpot in Ladakh,' run by Thai Thao, opened its doors again this spring. It's a place that hauled a pho stockpot up above 3,500 meters, and it can only operate half the year; from snow-covered November through April it closes and she returns to Ho Chi Minh City. This story, reported by D\u00e2n tr\u00ed on July 26, would be a waste to file away as a feel-good tale of a Vietnamese making it in a remote land. For travelers it's 'an option usable only from April to October,' and a case that shows in hard figures just how far altitude and logistics push prices up.<\/p>\n
According to VnExpress, in mid-April in Leh, pipes that freeze overnight only start to thaw in the morning. Thao, 38, and four employees stand before a mountain of dishes, waiting for drops to fall in the sink. The water turns into a stream only before noon, when the temperature rises. Waiting for water comes before opening prep, and it has gone on for three years.<\/p>\n
The shop sits in the center of Leh on a roughly 800-square-meter plot, about a 10-minute walk from the market. Snow-capped mountains rise behind it, and a street lined with hotels and souvenir shops runs out front. Reports put its open season anywhere from April to the end of October to mid-March through mid-November, but either way, travelers can use it for about half the year, spanning the summer.<\/p>\n
Thao ran three homestays in Saigon Ward, Ho Chi Minh City. She first visited Ladakh in 2018 and has returned again and again to this land, wedged between the Himalayas and the Karakoram at an average elevation above 3,500 meters. Winter lasts from October through May, and temperatures can drop to minus 30 degrees.<\/p>\n
As I kept coming through on tour work, I noticed that Asian travelers had a hard time adjusting to the local food. Ladakhi meals are built around spiced lentil stews served with barley or wheat bread. On a whim I served banh mi to some locals, they loved it, and the idea for a shop started to move.<\/p>\n
The land was leased in 2022. In a place with almost no contractors, Thao arranged everything personally, from sourcing timber and finding a sawmill to hiring craftsmen and hauling sand and stone. The strain piled up and Thao developed severe altitude sickness, requiring emergency hospitalization. Ladakh, at over 3,500m, is said to have about 35% less oxygen than the lowlands.<\/p>\n
Completed in July 2022, four months after construction began, at a cost of about 900 million dong. At roughly 1 yen = 162 dong (as of July 2026),about 5.56 million yen<\/strong>. It seats about 60. Stories of overseas Vietnamese keeping their cuisine alive abroad are best known from the US (Standing in the Kitchen Even After Losing His Sight: A Blind Overseas-Vietnamese Chef Chasing His Mother's Flavors<\/a>), in the high interior of India the real challenge comes before reproducing the flavor\u2014it's whether the ingredients arrive at all.<\/p>\n According to Dan tri, a bowl of pho here is 240,000 dong, a hotpot about 600,000 dong, and other a la carte dishes fall between 60,000 and 80,000 dong. Converted at the same rate, that's about 1,480 yen for the pho, 3,700 yen for the hotpot, and 370-490 yen for the single dishes. Adding a second conversion for travelers paying in rupees, at about 1 rupee = 1.70 yen (as of July 2026), the pho comes to roughly 870 rupees.<\/p>\nIs 240,000 Dong for a Bowl of Pho Expensive? Counting It Against Hanoi<\/h2>\n