Wednesday Walk - to the Sarawak Borneo Cultures Museum!
When I was back home in Kuching, I finally visited a museum that I have been eager to go since it opens its doors to the public.
It is none other than the Borneo Cultures Museum.
I have never really though of myself as a museum person but I am drawn to this one because it has interactive sections, I guess.
I wanted to bring my eldest son to this museum to expose him to the place where I was born and raised to see its cultures in many ways. Of course if the secondborn could come along, it would also be great but he needed his noon nap still to recharge.
So on my birthday, my youngest sister offered to bring me here.
Borneo Cultures Museum
Location: Jalan Tun Abang Haji Openg, 93400 Kuching, Sarawak
Opening hours: 9am to 445pm on Mondays till Fridays. 9am to 430pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
Entrance tickets
It was very difficult to find a parking on the day I went which was a Saturday. My sister had to drop my son and I off while she continued to wait for parking.
The entrance ticket was RM8 for those with student card, free for those below 12 years old and RM10 for Sarawakkian such as myself and RM20 for non-Sarawakkian Malaysian. For foreigners, it is priced differently at RM50 for adults and RM25 for children and senior citizens.
So he got to enter for free!
Children's Gallery
This is the very first section we entered after we took an escalator up to the 1st floor. The Children's Gallery is actually a very fun and interactive zone not only for children, but the adults too. It is educational to children's level of understanding too and it has many information on recycling and trash management, the geography of Sarawak as well as there were musical instruments made of recycled products. It also has games on how to sort out rubbish to recycle and also how long each type of rubbish takes to decompose.
My favorite section was sitting on the boats in a simulation room where there were videos with visuals and sounds like going down a waterfall and different places to explore the nature of Sarawak. I love that experience!
Before we left the children's gallery, we went to take photos at their photo booth.
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In Harmony with Nature
This is one floor above the Children's Gallery. After the Children's Gallery, every other gallery are in a darker mode with displays like traditional costumes of the aboriginal races in Sarawak, their houses and weapons, customs etc. Being a Sarawakkian myself, I also do not know many of these knowledges so it was interesting for me. There were replicas of boats that the Ibans and Bidayuhs used. Forgive me if the photos are not too clear since they were taken in the dark.
There were also huge screens for us to watch and be immersed in nature and some information can be heard through their phones.
I found a Baruk house where I used to researched on as a student for my history project. It is where the Ibans who were head hunters hang their prize of pride which were the human skulls. .
Then, we entered an artifical cave that is responsive to touch. My boy and some other children had fun here too.
There was also a giant book where it can detect our hand gesture when we "flipped" the book. It is about the history of how Sarawak came about.
Before we left the top floor, I took photo with my boy overlooking some iconic spots of Kuching at the top floor.
the Ground floor displays
I did not get the name of this gallery but I think they change the displays here more often as they display more current things like covid-19 related information. There was a very beautiful globe of the earth here.
My son went to try playing this as well.
After 1.5 hours of walking around the museum, our tour has finally ended. It was actually not bad and we enjoyed it. I think it was an afternoon well spent!