TUDM Museum

Have you ever been to the TUDM (Royal Air Force) museum in downtown KL? If you haven't, I don't blame you. Although I drove by this museum every day to get to work, I only get to visit it last week when I brought my family to a wedding at a hall nearby.



The TUDM museum is located at the entrance of the Sungai Besi air force base. The air force base itself was our country's first international airport that was converted to an air force base after it relocated to Subang. To get there, just go to the air force base entrance, nod politely at the personnel and turn left immediately after the checkpoint post.



Even during weekend, you'll find a lot of empty parking spaces and when we got there, there were no other visitors present. The TUDM museum is more like a junkyard for old and retired air force jet fighters and planes. After going to the entrance, you'll find a row of old, rusty and decaying planes of all sizes lining up in a rectangular in front of a little hanger that houses a few more planes and exhibit.



Many of the planes are already in a state of decay with presumably little care or maintenance if any. Some of them are literally falling apart with rust all over and a few became a nice little nesting spot for birds, decorated by bird droppings.



With such appalling state of display, little wonder that very few tourist or visitors bothered to go there safe for a few curious locals like me. It is sad that the country's only air force museum is in such a sorry state. I'm pretty certain that the ministry of defence gets a few billions in budget every year and surely a few million from that could go the better maintenance of the air force museum that is currently rusting to oblivion.

National Museum

When was the last time you visited the National Museum? 5, 10 years ago? Never? I remember my last and only trip to the National Museum was about 20 years ago when I was a kid. It's amazing how I didn't think about returning there all these while.

So I decided to bring my family to the museum earlier this month. The admission ticket was surprisingly very cheap at RM2.00 for Malaysians and RM5.00 for foreigners. Kids below 12 and uniformed school children gets in free.



We started early in the morning where's there ample parking and not so many visitors. First stop was the indigenous (orang asli) people craft museum situated just next to the parking lot.



There was some really fascinating orang asli craft and merchandise to see in that little museum. We learnt tiny bits about life and culture of the original settlers of Malaysia.



Next stop was the National Museum itself. I remember when I was kid, this museum looks humongous. 20 years later it looks a lot smaller to me. Maybe then I was small and the building was bigger back then.



The museum was divided into several different eras of Malaysia's history. For the prehistoric era to the Malacca sultanate times to colonial times and finally post-independence Malaya.



Some really ancient dead guy and his possession. You know what they say - you can't carry all your precious belongings to the afterlife. They will always become someone else's.



A cave woman and her children. For a cave woman she looks quite hot.



Skulls of our ancestors.



Pretty but no match against the colonial firepower.





You ain't winning any war with cannons that small.



Earlier this year I learnt that Hang Tuah might just be a fictional lore just like Robin Hood and Merlin.



The main lobby. Current exhibition is the formation of Malaysia.



The moment we sold our sovereignty to a foreign power. The Pangkor treaties.



Colonial era.



Japanese occupation.



Early education for locals.

Literature figures.



Emergency era.



Before they become rags for their political master, the Malay Mail was actually a respected daily.



Proclamation of independence.



The royal headgear of the Malay sultanate.

As of now they can't find any Asian looking mannequin so these will do for now.



Exploration room supposedly for children but we were completely ignored by the staff there.

During our visit, much of the front side of the museum is closed off for the construction of the MRT line so we couldn't take pictures of the iconic place from that side.

I wish there was more to see at the nation's premier museum. But for 2 ringgit I can't expect Louvre type exhibition can I? Still I hope there would continue to expand and improve this important national heritage. For the time being let us all visit the national museum.

View Larger Map