Weird error with Amazon SES

Hello All

I verified an email address that I will use to send emails "from"
DKIM: not yet done: docs are unclear if both emails and DKIM need to be validated. I got confused, so I skipped this for now.

Let us say that email "from" is "me@me.com"
For all the following, I used the SMTP, through SES Servers of the same region where I had created the verified email me@me.com on AWS

Emails from "me@me.com" to "me@me.com" get delivered
Emails (exact same content as above) from "me@me.com" to "me@somwhere.else.com" don't get delivered. The SMTP server returns an error

Full SMTP log is below (I changed email addresses used)

echo at line 41 echo at line 502021-05-05 08:03:20 Connection: opening to email-smtp.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com:587, timeout=300, options=array()
2021-05-05 08:03:20 Connection: opened
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "220 email-smtp.amazonaws.com ESMTP SimpleEmailService-d-WOSR4YSK9 xq5K3R5BdxSfySekPO0P"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 email-smtp.amazonaws.com ESMTP SimpleEmailService-d-WOSR4YSK9 xq5K3R5BdxSfySekPO0P
2021-05-05 08:03:21 CLIENT -> SERVER: EHLO svayam.coacheagram.com
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-email-smtp.amazonaws.com"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-8BITMIME"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-STARTTLS"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250 Ok"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SERVER -> CLIENT: 250-email-smtp.amazonaws.com250-8BITMIME250-STARTTLS250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN250 Ok
2021-05-05 08:03:21 CLIENT -> SERVER: STARTTLS
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "220 Ready to start TLS"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SERVER -> CLIENT: 220 Ready to start TLS
2021-05-05 08:03:21 CLIENT -> SERVER: EHLO svayam.coacheagram.com
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-email-smtp.amazonaws.com"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-8BITMIME"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-STARTTLS"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "250 Ok"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SERVER -> CLIENT: 250-email-smtp.amazonaws.com250-8BITMIME250-STARTTLS250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN250 Ok
2021-05-05 08:03:21 Auth method requested: UNSPECIFIED
2021-05-05 08:03:21 Auth methods available on the server: PLAIN,LOGIN
2021-05-05 08:03:21 Requested auth method not available:
2021-05-05 08:03:21 Auth method selected: LOGIN
2021-05-05 08:03:21 CLIENT -> SERVER: AUTH LOGIN
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "334 VXNlcm5hbWU6"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SERVER -> CLIENT: 334 VXNlcm5hbWU6
2021-05-05 08:03:21 CLIENT -> SERVER: QUtJQVdJRjY3SENBUTREQVdGWFU=
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6"
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SERVER -> CLIENT: 334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
2021-05-05 08:03:21 CLIENT -> SERVER: QkdReXIybTR0VUV6MjZLSGZZcFVRcFF4RldFY1k1WHg0SkFOSTFHYzBWVWQ=
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SMTP INBOUND: "235 Authentication successful."
2021-05-05 08:03:21 SERVER -> CLIENT: 235 Authentication successful.
2021-05-05 08:03:21 CLIENT -> SERVER: MAIL FROM:me@me.com
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SMTP INBOUND: "250 Ok"
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SERVER -> CLIENT: 250 Ok
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: RCPT TO:me@somewhere.else.com
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SMTP INBOUND: "250 Ok"
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SERVER -> CLIENT: 250 Ok
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: DATA
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SMTP INBOUND: "354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>"
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SERVER -> CLIENT: 354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Date: Wed, 5 May 2021 13:33:20 +0530
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: To: recipient me@somewhere.else.com
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: From: Automailer me@me.com
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Reply-To: venkynaku my.reply.to.email@totally.different.domain.com
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Subject: test 222222
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Message-ID: Oyby8pNJql6GlAk5qvQI4BXlD7xGQSMNtIaLx12qUrE@svayam.coacheagram.com
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: X-Mailer: PHPMailer 6.0.7 (https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer)
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: MIME-Version: 1.0
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: boundary="b1_Oyby8pNJql6GlAk5qvQI4BXlD7xGQSMNtIaLx12qUrE"
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER:
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: --b1_Oyby8pNJql6GlAk5qvQI4BXlD7xGQSMNtIaLx12qUrE
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER:
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: <center><h3>Test</h3></center><p>This is a test email</p>
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER:
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: --b1_Oyby8pNJql6GlAk5qvQI4BXlD7xGQSMNtIaLx12qUrE
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER:
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: <center><h3>Test</h3></center><p>This is a test email</p>
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER:
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER:
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: --b1_Oyby8pNJql6GlAk5qvQI4BXlD7xGQSMNtIaLx12qUrE--
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER:
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: .
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SMTP INBOUND: "554 Message rejected: Email address is not verified. The following identities failed the check in region AP-SOUTH-1: me@somewhere.else.com"
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SERVER -> CLIENT: 554 Message rejected: Email address is not verified. The following identities failed the check in region AP-SOUTH-1: me@somewhere.else.com
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SMTP ERROR: DATA END command failed: 554 Message rejected: Email address is not verified. The following identities failed the check in region AP-SOUTH-1: me@somewhere.else.com
SMTP Error: data not accepted.
2021-05-05 08:03:22 CLIENT -> SERVER: QUIT
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SMTP INBOUND: "221 Bye"
2021-05-05 08:03:22 SERVER -> CLIENT: 221 Bye
2021-05-05 08:03:22 Connection: closed