Is it James Bond? Franscisco Scaramanga? Jaws? The answer is none of them. As a matter of fact , it would be hard for anybody to live on James Bond Island. The island is solid rock that is 66ft tall, 26ft wide at the top, and only 13 ft wide at the bottom making getting home after a drunken night on the town a bit challenging.
Seriously though, this is the island that was featured in the 1974 Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun and is actually the island pictured called Ko Ta Pu and the much larger island next to it called Khao Phing Kan. It was the secret lair of Scaramanga. The solar panels that powered the lair popped up out of the smaller tower Ko Ta Pu.
The islands are located in Phang Nga Bay near Phuket, Thailand in Ao Phang Nga National Park. The islands are in an archepeligo of geological formations known as a karst. Karst formations are where limestone is eroded away leaving towering rocks. I found these pics when i was bored one day at work. I was thinking about the pics that Bing posts of narrow towering mountains with flat valleys full of rice paddies in China. (that will be in another article). I like to see picturesque landscapes. Natural, manmade, extra-terrestrial, underwater, whatever. That and I am a Bond fan.
Today, you can visit James Bond Island. On the larger island there is boat dock for boat tours and a small village on stilts with plenty of shops. If you go with a group the cost is about 1200 baht plus a 200 baht park fee for the day. (about $45 USD total). Enjoy!