Buying a camera now is basically for one thing - having quick access to physical knobs and buttons to change settings on the fly. Same goes with being able to manually zoom quickly, or focus quickly on a particular object in the frame.

You can accomplish this sort of thing with a cell phone camera, but not quickly. By the time you’re done fussing around with it, the motorbike covered in ducks has sped off down the road.

I bought a Nikon D90 in Vietnam about 12 years ago. It was more expensive than it would have been in the US. Someone here might recommend a good camera, but either you won’t be able to find it locally, or it’ll be out of your budget. The D90 was already somewhat obsolete when I bought it, but damn did I get some really great pictures that I’ll cherish forever.

I recommend going to a local shop, preferably with a local friend. Try and touch stuff as much as you can.

Watch some videos on aperature, exposure, ISO, and what you can accomplish with those things. I generally prefer letting the camera pick ISO and exposure automatically, and having manual control of aperature. I found that gave me good control of getting the effects I wanted (short depth of field, for example).