Maybe Darwin?

Before writing this, I typed “Darwin” into the blog’s search box. Nothing came up, and that’s just about right because Darwin has never been on my radar.

The one thing I associated with Darwin before the past few days was that Teddy, a high school classmate who always came to class early so that half of the class (myself included) could copy his assignments, moved to Darwin to do his bachelor’s.

Another phantom memory of the place was when a colleague claimed it was the best place she had travelled to in Australia. When I asked why, expecting to hear some variation of “there is plenty to see/do/eat in Darwin,” she replied, “You can feed crocodiles,” like the true Australian she is.

Besides these two random memories, Darwin hadn’t occupied much of my brain space. But then, two days ago, Qantas cancelled our flights to Port Vila, Vanuatu, without offering alternatives, tipping my love-hate relationship with the airline more towards hate.

After allowing myself to panic for two seconds (I was in a work meeting when I read the notification email on my screen), I forwarded the cancellation email to Jik.

Vanuatu was supposed to be our GGP Trip of the year.

After a lengthy back-and-forth of us complaining about Qantas and her calling it “Cunt-as” (because, yes, we behave like 10-year-olds with each other), she messaged:

“Maybe Darwin?”

Darwin, eh?

What is in Darwin? How far is Darwin? What are we going to do in Darwin except feed crocodiles? But then again, we had never been to Darwin, and it’s also the only central state in Australia that I had never been to. Can that be reason enough?

“How about Laos?” I replied because Darwin felt like a letdown compared to the beach resort waiting for us in Port Vila. But I squashed my own suggestion after seeing the flight price (it was a last-minute flight after all – no thanks to Cunt-as).

Darwin, it is

We fly this Friday ━ with Virgin because F Qantas, but mostly because it’s cheaper—a cheap flight is where our loyalties lie. I am from Melbourne, and Jik is from Sydney; we are meeting in Brisbane and flying to Darwin together (23 E and 23 F seats).

I didn’t repack the luggage I originally packed for Vanuatu, I assume I’ll need the same clothes for Darwin. Also, we still don’t know what to do in Darwin except feed the crocodiles and eat Laksa, which seems very Asian-Australian to me.

Darwin, here we come

P.S. I also want to thank the Agoda people for helping to cancel the hotel booking even though it was less than a week away. Only because of the refund can we reroute our GGP Trip to Darwin.

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