28/09/2026
How Much Does a Vietnamese Meal Cost? | CƠM TẤM | Da Lat, Vietnam | PAN-VN | Overland to China
What does a full Vietnamese meal actually cost?
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This marks my 17th video & 1 Short, with the four-month mark of Vicarious Terrain™️ approaching — June 3rd → October 3rd.
The films are, at best, practitioner level, and I still have an enormous amount to learn.
I started this journey in early February with my Nepal & Everest Base Camp project, really learning production for the first time. By April, I was seriously getting into post-production and learning the mechanics of DaVinci Resolve. I've also spent the past year rebuilding my knowledge of GIS and ArcGIS Pro.
Since then, I've published most of Nepal, filmed Angkor Wat, filmed PAN-VIETNAM | Ascending the Red Dragon | Overland to China — with the overland-to-China portion still ahead — and I'm currently in post-production on the Vietnam and Angkor Wat projects, while also working on another humanitarian project.
This Da Lat film is another step in that process.
I'm learning by doing — filming, researching, mapping, recording, editing, developing workflows, creating thumbnails, and learning the internal mechanisms of YouTube: algorithms, settings, analytics, marketing interfaces, and everything in between.
I'm also learning something that can't really be taught from a manual: the personality of the camera and the personality of the person behind it. Finding the right rhythm, knowing when to speak, when to observe, when a scene needs more energy — and recognizing that sometimes the result is simply a little dull. That's part of learning the craft.
I'm figuring out how all of these pieces fit together.
And I want to say thank you to everyone who has supported Vicarious Terrain™️ — watched, shared, commented, and subscribed — while knowing these films are imperfect and very much part of a learning process. 🙏
A special thank you to the friends who have shown up as special guests, held the camera, and become part of these stories.
And just as importantly, thank you to all the strangers along the way who have stopped, helped, and held the camera so I could step into the frame and tell the story.
Every one of those moments has helped make this project possible.
"The journey is the destination."
“I’ve found that nothing in life is worthwhile unless you take risks. Fall forward. Every failed experiment is one step closer to success.”
— Denzel Washington
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What began as a simple plate of Cơm Tấm became a story about Da Lat — its markets, agriculture, architecture, people, and the geography connecting the food back to Vietnam's rice-growing regions.
📍 Da Lat, Vietnam
🎬 VICARIOUS TERRAIN™️
Every Vicarious Terrain™️ film is created by a one-man team.
Michael Adam Harding
Filmmaker • Researcher • Producer • Traveler • Editor • GIS Specialist
No production crew. No generated shortcuts. Just research, exploration, filming, mapping, editing, and the journey itself.
🗺️ GIS & REMOTE SENSING
This film incorporates original GIS mapping and geographic analysis to connect the landscape to the story — showing how geography, agriculture, transportation, markets, and culture intersect.
🚫 NO AI-GENERATED CONTENT
No AI-generated footage, imagery, mapping, narration, scripts, or editing.
Everything you see and hear was researched, filmed, mapped, recorded, edited, and produced by Vicarious Terrain™️ — Michael Adam Harding.
🌏 FOLLOW VICARIOUS TERRAIN™️
Travel stories, documentaries, clips, GIS & remote sensing, exploration, culture, geography, and behind-the-scenes content.
If you enjoy the journey, please consider liking, sharing, and following/subscribing to support future films.
More journeys. More maps. More stories from the terrain.
What does a full Vietnamese meal actually cost?In Da Lat, I set o...