Kuching Attractions

Venue: Sarawak Museum    When: Daily

Regarded as one of the best museums in the whole of Asia, the Sarawak Museum is split into a number of sites in the state capital, Kuching, as well as other museums throughout the region.

Founded in 1891, the old building of Sarawak Museum was constructed especially to house native arts and crafts. It was extended 20 years later, but still the collections grew, so that the ground floor now contains the natural history collection and specimens of Sarawak's fauna, with the west wing containing the Shell exhibition, concentrating on the region's oil industry. Upstairs are the anthropological collections, showing the ethnography of the region, with artefacts and models of traditional long houses and boats.

The "new" museum (Dewan Tun Abdul Razak - which underwent renovation in 2003) was named after Malaysia's second Prime Minister. The ground floor is devoted to photographs and paintings illustrative of Sarawak's history, while upstairs visitors can find archaeological treasures from the region.

The Islamic Museum celebrates Malaysia's national religion in seven galleries housed in an early 20th century building, formerly a teaching college. It features displays on the history of Islam in Sarawak, Islamic architecture, science, technology, economics, education and literature, music, costumes and personal effects, weapons, the decorative arts and domestic ware and, finally, the Holy Koran collection.

In 1993 the Chinese Museum was opened to reflect the rich Chinese heritage of the region, located in a building that was built in 1912 and used for nine years as a court by the Chinese community.

Also there to explore are the Niah Archaeology Museum, Limbang Regional Museum, as well as the Textile Museum, housed in the three-storey English colonial-style Pavilion in Kuching City.