Southeast Asia 2024
@Steph386
Sara Chen
Photographer. Fourteen rolls of 35mm across eight cities. I do not shoot digital on personal trips.
Singapore
"I came here to make photographs. It took eight weeks to understand that the photographs were the least important thing happening.
"Steph1st of October 2026
Eight Weeks, Eight Cities08.01.2024 – 10.03.2024
08.01.2024Bangkok. Arrived already knowing the city. That was the mistake. Familiarity is not the same as attention. Spent three days unlearning what I thought I knew.
08.01.2024
15.01.2024Pai. Three hundred curves on the road up from Chiang Mai. No phone signal for two days. Found out what I photograph when there is no one watching.
15.01.2024
22.01.2024Luang Prabang. Woke at 4am every morning for a week to watch the alms giving. Never once raised the camera. Some things photograph better as memory.
22.01.2024
01.02.2024Phong Nali. A guesthouse with twelve rooms and one light bulb per floor. Sat on the porch for four evenings watching the Mekong run. Did not move.
01.02.2024
09.02.2024Hanoi. Shot two full rolls on the first day and hated every frame. Shot nothing on the second. The third day got the one photograph I came for.
09.02.2024
18.02.2024Hoi An. Yellow walls. Every photographer has been here. I went anyway and found the alley everyone else had missed, two streets behind the famous one.
18.02.2024
27.02.2024Kampot. River, pepper plantations, no agenda. Stayed eleven days instead of three. The best travel decision I have made in years.
27.02.2024
10.03.2024Koh Rong. Last island. Water so clear you can see the shadow of your hand on the sand four metres down. Finished the last roll. Flew home empty and full at the same time.
10.03.2024
Rolls of 35mm
14
Longest stay
11 days · Kampot
Frames kept
31
Distance
5,200 km
Border crossings
6
Best meal
40 baht. Roadside. No name.
Pai is worth the nausea. Rent a scooter the morning after you arrive, not the day of. The road north of town before 7am is yours.
Kampot has no landmark. That is the point. Give it more days than you planned. The pepper farms thirty minutes out are empty on weekday mornings.