When we approached the immigration desk, the lady asked me to take my passport out of its cover, which is never a good sign, because my passport does not look good naked, at least to authorities: 
Many, if not all countries I have visited have appreciated the artistic vision involved in this creation, which has taken me eight years to mould with loving hands, and have happily stamped my passport and allowed me entry into their country. Australia did not.
Many, if not all countries I have visited have appreciated the artistic vision involved in this creation, which has taken me eight years to mould with loving hands, and have happily stamped my passport and allowed me entry into their country. Australia did not. The lady passed it to another lady, they had a chat and then Lady #1 smugly told me she wouldn't be stamping my passport today, thanked Frenchie like he was Teacher's Pet and told him he could go through. Me, she referred me to Lady #2 who was holding on to my passport in a way I've only ever seen an Israeli girl on military service doing. You know the way they wave it gently out of your reach and watch you to see your reaction to their authority?
Lady #2: I can't validate this document because it's been tampered with.
Me: okay.
Lady #2: have you ever had any problems with this before?
Me: just once. In Israel.
Lady #2: I'm going to talk to my colleague about what I can do for you.
Me: thank you.
Frenchie looks stressed. I keep repeating to myself in a calm, floaty voice that I am not a terrorist and that remaining calm, polite and cooperative will surely resolve the issue.
Lady #2 hangs out in her little room talking about how she can take out all her pent up aggression of not being loved enough as a child on me for about 3 minutes. I make soothing noises and pat Frenchie's knee. He hisses in French words I shall never repeat to you.
Lady #2 returns.
Lady #2: this document is no longer valid. I can let you in this time, and you won't be prevented from leaving, but you won't be admitted back into the country on this document.
Lady #2 takes her job so seriously that she refuses to even use the word 'passport' as this is clearly not what this piece of defaced paper is to her.
Frenchie: sorry, but we have a whole trip planned and we need to enter the country again on Monday.
Lady #2: then I suggest you get in touch with the consulate in Canberra and get an emergency travel document.
Me: okay. Thank you.
This morning I wandered if this woman was a noble upholder of her national laws, or simply a heinous bitch. After spending 5:30-6:30am trawling the Internet trying to figure out the consequences of her decision, I'm inclined to go with the latter. Now, all ye who dream of an international lifestyle, please consider whether this sounds like a process that sounds fun to you:
Option A:
Return to Singapore on allotted flight. Make appointment with consulate as ETD can only be applied for in person. Visit embassy and apply for ETD with risk of being denied. Pay £95 and have passport automatically cancelled, which means applying for a new passport through Hong Kong whilst on holiday, which takes 4 weeks, and thus risk not getting back to Saigon in time for Heather and Emyr's visit and possibly the start of term. Also pay £174 for a new passport.
If ETD denied, cancel four week holiday, which includes internal flights already booked, hotels and camper vans. Waste two of Frenchie's precious five weeks of holiday. Despise Australia and Lady #2 forever.
Option B
Stay in Darwin, stubbornly refusing to allow Australia to deny me entrance by simply not reentering à la Aung Sung Syu Chi (spelling?) and win a moral victory.
Questions arise, such as a) can I fly internally on my drivers licence since my passport is apparently INVALID? b) is anywhere affordable to stay in Australia without Frenchie's company paying for it? c) is there a flight available to get me to Brisbane next week that doesn't go through Perth/Sydney/Kuala Lumpar and is less than $1200 AUS? d) can I bear to be apart from Frenchie for seven days considering the reason I insisted on accompanying him on this impromptu trip in the first place was because I would have missed his face intolerably if he had been gone for two days when I wasn't expecting it? e) am I ever going to hand in a first draft of my dissertation that actually includes valid theories, readings or references from books from a recognised educational establishment?
Tricky. I haven't consulted with Frenchie yet as he is out in the field wrestling crocodiles/uncooperative colleagues (they're French, what would you expect), but as a solutions-focused person whose feminist icons include Burmese activists whose names I can't spell, and who regularly looks at large scale institutions/issues like educational disadvantage, casual sexism and Frenchie's inability to pronounce a short 'i' sound and thinks, 'yeah, I can take you. Show me what you've got', I'm sure you know that I'm leaning towards Option B so I can flash some vs at what is essentially the biggest island in the world (not even a landmass, pah!) and end this saga saying 'vene vini vici' as if I know what it means, like Del Boy assuring you that everything is 'mange tout, Rodney, mange tout!'
Everything, by the way, will be mange tout eventually as long as everyone comes out of this alive, which is my grandfather's definition of success.
In the meantime, lets laugh at their money to make ourselves feel better. 
It's like the Queen visited thirty years ago when she could be bothered and someone drew a quick sketch of her, and since then, nobody at the mint has bothered to download the ageing app to make her look more like an 80-something year old so everyone's just waiting until she comes back again, or dies, and then they can put Charles on their note instead, ten years into his reign. The $1 is bigger than the $2, and the 20 cents is overcompensating for being worth hardly anything because it's unreasonably MASSIVE.
It's like the Queen visited thirty years ago when she could be bothered and someone drew a quick sketch of her, and since then, nobody at the mint has bothered to download the ageing app to make her look more like an 80-something year old so everyone's just waiting until she comes back again, or dies, and then they can put Charles on their note instead, ten years into his reign. The $1 is bigger than the $2, and the 20 cents is overcompensating for being worth hardly anything because it's unreasonably MASSIVE. Okay, I feel better now. Take that Australia.
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