From The Hindu Archives, February 11, 1976: Welcome to Australian tourists

Madras, Feb 10: “Madras is a colourful city, though we find a lot of poverty around”. This was the comment made by some of the Australian tourists who had come here aboard the P and O luxury liner, Oriana, touching Madras for the first time on its Indian Ocean cruise. They were part of the 1,500 Australians, young and old, who made the best use of the ten-hour halt in the city, sight-seeing, shopping or walking along the beach. About 300 of them made a dash to Mahabalipuram to see the shore temple and other monuments.

Quite a few visited the restaurants. A couple of crew members, who had eaten biryani at a restaurant, said it was good, but they missed the ‘chappathi’ and ‘pappadam’ that were served along with this dish in restaurants in England. “We have ‘pappadam’ aboard the ship”, they said. The affluent Australians were free with their money and one of them had paid Rs. 60 to a porter.

The visitors were given a traditional welcome with Nadaswaram music by the Tamil Nadu Tourism Department and the Tourism Development Corporation when the ship berthed in the port in the morning. A caparisoned elephant garlanded the Captain of the ship. The State police played the band much to the enjoyment of the tourists who started dancing. Mr. C. Ramachandran, Managing Director, TNTDC, received the Captain Mr. S.F. Wacher, and the Deputy Captain, Mr. Peter Love.

The Government of India Tourist Office had also made special arrangements for the city tour of the visitors.