The name is Pandu.. James Pandu..

The previous post in this series is here..

The first morning in Phuket, we decided to take a trip to James Bond Island. We were told that this is the only touristy place to visit outside of the resorts in that area. We had booked a long tail boat tour for 10 and 7 of us went on the trip. An energetic kid was our guide. He picked us up in a van from the hotel in the morning at 7:30 AM and we drove almost an hour to the dock. There we took a boat ride for almost another 45 minutes to go to the Island.

The island is small and you have four spots to see in total. Given only 4 to 5 boats can stop at the island, as soon as the boat docks, they give the guide a laminated card with the time for leaving. The time allotted for us was 45 minutes. So we had to do a rush rush job at every place, take group pictures, solo pictures, couple pictures and by the time our guide got us out of one spot to the next, he was so relieved.

He even had some plastic guns and fans as props for us to take pictures. Before we knew it, it was time to get back on the boat and then on the van to the hotel.

There is a muslim floating village on the way with nice views. There is also a mangrove forest for most of the route but there were no birds or critters we could see. Only exception was some hawks and kites which I barely managed to capture on camera from a moving boat! The boats themselves are interesting.. they have the engine high up and open with only the propeller going into the water from a long shaft.. They move it up and down for speed and right to left for navigation.

We also saw rock carvings which are thousands of years old in caves. Never realized we were so close to Andaman islands till we saw that the ferries were all Andaman!

Here are the photos..

more photos.. the roads in Phuket in this area were all lined with street lights that had elephants on them. Just beautiful!

A video highlights reel of the morning trip to Bond island..

We came back to the hotel and by the time we went from our rooms to the beach, we were an hour late.. and we missed some of the ceremony.. but were happy to jump in the pool with all our friends to have fun.

All the bond girls on our trip were happy and all smiles after this trip. That was good enough for all the Bonds..

Sorrento piers and Sunset

The previous post in this series is here..

After going back to the hotel, the kids decided we had to go to the “beach”. There was NO beach. Just sea access points. We stayed at Hotel Angelina in Sorrento for the two nights. Strongly recommend it for the quiet location, access to the sea, walkable to the city center and public bus stop, and most importantly cute rooms and a very friendly staff. They helped me park the car everytime in the garage!

Our hotel manager told us that there is a public access point to the ocean where locals rent just umbrellas and chairs for 10 or 15 Euro instead of the 50-100 through the hotel elevators that take you down. We had to walk through a tunnel. So off we went. It was a good walk and nice experience. San and the little one stayed in the chairs and relaxed while Jr. and me decided to spend 2 hours in the water.

Then we went back up. It was tricky walking with wet chappals in the tunnels. We dressed up nice again and went back to the city center for dinner. Found a nice place which had a few vegetarian options and small wait time (turns out it was a chain restaurant which is not fancy by local standards.. we found out the next day). Still the food was good and we walked to a local supermarket. Everyone was giving up on sunset and I was being lectured on being sunset crazy. Pushed everyone to walk fast towards the sea and they reluctantly came.

Have to hand it to Jr. She believed in me and told everyone not to give up. When we went to the end of the road we got to see a glorious sunset. After this it was a longer walk back to the hotel and I used Apple maps to go through some deserted lanes. That made them all worry.. but it ended up okay and we were back at the hotel.

Here are the few pictures I have from this afternoon and evening.

A short highly edited video highlights reel..

On a side note, that purplish shirt that gives off different hues under sunlight was my dads. In the last few years we would get him shirts for events which he would wear for a few hours, then shirt will be washed and put in a bureau. When he passed my mom just gave me 15 of these once worn shirts, most of which I had got him as we are the same size. Used those shirts on this trip. There was a constant reminder to see things in a different context.

If you think I am pushing Ramarajan colors, my dad used to do this 50 years ago. He got shirts stitched with the hands and pocket in a different color with the local tailor. In a drab world he got style. Guess I have to thank him for that.

Back to Sorrento.. The next day was going to be packed. We had plans in the morning and had to be back in time for the postponed Kayak trip…

Floating in the dead sea - a nice end to a long trip

The previous post in this series is here..

We were done with Wadi Rum. There were more flight changes for part of our group. So BIL and family had to stay in Amman for an extra day. The rest of us had rescheduled our return (which was originally through DC on United) to go through Doha on Qatar airlines with a 8 hour gap in Doha! 

At least we would all be together till we were done with the dead sea experience. It took us a good 3+ hours to drive to the dead sea from Wadi Rum. We drove along the Israel Jordan border and stopped at Aqaba to see Egypt, Palestines West Bank, Jordan and Israel from the freeway. You can see it in the video. No wonder the place is tense all the time! The population density around the red sea area was incredible!

Then we were driving alond the dead sea. It was desolate. We could see a lot of farming on the Israel side, but nothing on the Jordanian side. We were blessed by the camel gods again on the drive. . 

Zaid stopped us at a store to buy some beauty products made from the dead sea. We spent 30 minutes there. It was interesting to know so many dermatology clinics and skin care treatment centers sprout around this area based on the curative aspects of the salt and water.

From the store we went to the Crowne plaza where a lunch had been arranged. It was an amazing buffet with a lot of vegetarian options and we got to drink tea with fresh cow milk for the first time in 5 days! There was a cake cutting celebration! With our tummies full, we were apprehensive of going in salty water.. what if we swallow some and the lunch comes out?! 

It was too late to discuss. So off we went. There is a beautiful elevator that takes us down to the water level in the Crowne Plaza. They also gave us towels and pool access as part of the service. It was all pre-booked. There are a lot of villas and long term housing accomodations in the crowne plaza. We learned that medical tourism, especially for dermatology is famous here and folks do stay there for 3 months at a time to take daily dips in the dead sea!

The signs that said Beach access were a lie. There is no BEACH! it is a bunch of rocks you walk on and eventually float.

This is highly risky. Out of the 8 people in our group and 6 others on this so called beach 5 of us had cuts and bleeding injuries when we came out of the water. Happy that no one hit their head on the rocks! 

Yes, you do float in the water and if the salt gets to your eyes or mouth, it stings badly and you have to rush to the shower to clean it out. There is no sand and the rocks on the floor cut your feet! My thighs were all bruised and bleeding (realized it much later), San's back was all scratched.. 

Like my niece aptly noted "the dead sea will take away all your pain and then double your pain by the time you are done floating!"

It was an interesting experience though. You get smeared with oily black sand, let it dry on you for 5 minutes, then go wash it out, float a bit, then get hosed down with fresh water.. followed by selective sand washing again and a final salt scrubbing.

When the entire thing was done, my skin was very very smooth but extremely dry! The supposed super moisturization didn't work on my skin. Maybe the salt water dehyrated me a lot. We were asked to drink a lot of water after that dip. The dead sea has 6-8 times the salt of regular seas and is also oily!

We walked back the hotel area and hung out by the pool. Then said our byes. It was time for the four of us to leave for the airport.

It was an hour plus drive from the dead sea to Amman airport and we saw tires burning in different places. We were hoping that my BIL's family stay safe the next day they were on their own and made it to our flight on time.

At Doha we took a transit Visa for 20 USD each. Then we took a taxi (they are reliable and affordable) to the Central Inn (15 minutes from the airport) and crashed there for the night. We got 5 hours of sleep. We already had boarding passes on carry on luggage only. We were back at the airport in the morning just in time to clear immigration, security check and board our flight to SFO!

The long return flight was actually good and the Vegetarian meals was excellent. This is my first time flying Qatar Airways, and I have to say they did a great job!

A video highlight of the drive to the dead sea and the experience there.

For the first time, I have managed to finish blogging about a weeklong trip within a week of returning. My family knew I wanted to finish it this time and have let me keep at it...

Yet to blog about the anniversary trip from July. Hopefully will do that over the next few days!

Thanks for reading through this series! 

This traveling family wishes you all a wonderful 2025!!!!