Half Day Tsunami Lesson Tour at Banda Aceh, Indonesia

The other things you could do during your no flight day after your dive at Pulau Weh is by taking a tour at Banda Aceh. Banda Aceh is the city located at the northern most of Sumatera, Indonesia. There are a lot of history on this place. One of it is the deadliest natural disaster, Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami at 9.1 magnitude happened on 26th December 2004. 
One of the best hotel in Banda Aceh got to offer is The Pade. It is a 4-star hotel with a grand outlook which you can relax yourself to take a hot shower which you didn't had during your stay at Pulau Weh.
To the Malaysian who are complaining about SST, please understand what the charges like in other countries. As you can see this hotel charges 21% compared to our 16%. Such a scary tax!
This awesome building is the Aceh Tsunami Museum which has no entrance fee. The model of the building is the result of contest winners, who is M.Ridwan Kamil (the Lecturer in Architecture from Bandung Institute of Technology) with the idea of building, is Rumoh Aceh as Escape Hill. The museum building plans are analogous to ocean wave’s tsunami epicenter. The traditional elements such as Tari Saman have been translated in the outer skin of the building exterior.
You will be passing by a Police helicopter which was not being lifted to the air in time when the Tsunami hit Banda Aceh. 
Inside the museum, you can find a narrow hallway with rumble noises waterwall on both sides as if to remind the enormity of the tsunami. Aceh Tsunami Museum displays an electronic simulation of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the photographs of the victims and the stories of the survivors.
This Museum that was built with Rp 70 billion funds has 2 stairs, where the first floor is an open area that can be seen from the outside and its function as a place to commemorate the tsunami. On this floor there are several rooms that contain tsunami track record in 2004. There is tsunami showroom, pre-Tsunami, the day of the tsunami and post-tsunami space. Also, there are some pictures of tsunami, tsunami trace artifacts and dioramas displayed in this floor.
On the 2nd floor containing instructional media in the form of a library, props, space 4D, and a souvenir shop. Some props are displayed among other things; the design of earthquake-resistant buildings, as well as a model diagram of the earth fault. There are some facilities continue to be refined as space disaster painting, diorama, libraries, 4-dimensional space, as well as cafe.
Adequate funding for the ongoing maintenance and use of the Aceh Tsunami Museum has not been forthcoming. The museum is one of a large number of so-called "tsunami assets", the precise legal ownership of which has been in dispute between different levels of Indonesian governments since at least 2009. As of late 2010, the Museum was only open intermittently and was poorly patronised.
Overall, it is really a sad place to be by seeing all the destruction that have done to the people here. Anyway, here is the details about Aceh Tsunami Museum.
Opening Hours: 9.00am - 5.00pm (daily); 9.00am - 12.00pm, 3.00pm - 5.00pm (Friday)
The Aceh Tsunami Museum is located at Jalan Iskandar Muda street in the heart of the city of Banda Aceh, near the Simpang Jam, the Clock tower Intersection. It is situated near the Blang Padang Field, next to the Dutch Cemetery or Kerkhof Peutjut.

This is the second most important tsunami-related sight in Banda Aceh (after the Tsunami Museum). It is a large floating diesel generator vessel that was carried far inland by the tsunami and got stranded right in the middle of a residential area of the city. It was left there as a monument and is now quite commodified, with a whole “tsunami theme park” around it, including a few house ruins, an observation tower, and a striking memorial monument.  
 First, you have to go through a gate with no admission fee is required to enter the “tsunami park”, which is now also completely fenced in. Once inside you see that there are elevated walkways all around the ship, even a tall observation tower with a spiral staircase leading up. The former street that the boat sits across has been repaved, as well as the whole area, and turned into a kind of landscaped garden or park with cobblestones and concrete design elements as well as various plants. 

The observation tower has been closed due to lack of maintenance. I really suggest of you who are going to visit there to do a little donation to help them to maintain this place. They actually should just charge a minimum of 20,000 IDR for the entrance fee instead giving it for free.
PLTD Apung 1 is an electric generator ship in Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia that has become a tourist attraction. The 2,600 ton vessel had been in the sea and was flung 5 kilometers inland by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. It was owned by PLN, the local power generating company, and crashed upon two homes when it landed, killing those inside. Visitors are able to enter the ship, and can explore the interior in its entirety. This is the only house that was spared and the residents were lucky enough to survive from the impact.
Once on board you can just go exploring the different levels of the vessel, but not the inside (at least as far as I could make out). There are bits of rusting technology, winches, pipes, etc., along with new additions: in particular the coin-operated telescopes on the top deck – of the same sort you find all over the world where there are viewpoints, be it on the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. 
Due to the terrorist group, Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM) conflict with the Indonesia government, GAM often sabotage or destroy the power grid and the power station which gave the electricity to the people of Banda Aceh. So the local government decided to send this electric generator ship from West Kalimantan all the way to Ulee Lhueue which is the port of Banda Aceh in 2004.
Just before this ship started its job, the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami triggered just the northwest of Sumatera which carried this ship to Punge Blang Cut.
The view of Banda Aceh at the top of the ship. The view is amazing but there are no taller buildings than this mosque in Banda Aceh since this city is an earthquake prone city. The opening hours for this place is 9.00am - 12.00pm; 2.00pm - 5.30pm (daily).
Third, we are at the Fisherman Boat on an Inhabitat House Lampulo Village. The entrance fee is also free here. The earthquake and tsunami disaster on the Boxing Day has devastated whole infrastructures in Banda Aceh and because of the tsunami wave, a wooden boat was stranded in Gampong Lampulo, Kuta Alam precisely on top of Misbah family's house.
Before the disaster, the boat was in the dock area in Krueng Aceh River in Lampulo. Hasri Yulian and Saiful Bahri, both of them are from Lhoknga, Acer Besar, were in charge of the boat. They instructed Adun, the boat keeper, to be prepared on Sunday 26th December 2004 because the wooden boat, which has 25m of length, 5.5 meter of width and 20 tonnes in weight would be put to the sea after reparation of the boat. T. Zulfikar, the owner of the boat who lives in Cemara Hijau housing in Medan, instructed to head the boat to Lhoknga to load seine for fishing after receiving report from his brother-in-law, who was the boat manager.
Unfortunately, God decided something else, the earthquake and tsunami disaster has stranded the boat to the housing in Lampulo, which was approximately located 1km from the dock area. Praise to the God, 59 people survived in the boat because of this incident. When the water declined, the people did not realize that a huge crocodile was under the boat, as said by the sister of madam Abasiah who survived at the second floor of her house, right in front of Abasiyah's house.

The above is the video which I got from the YouTube about this incident. It was really horrible. From this tour I understand that life is too short. We must treasure what we have now and do not always delay whatever you want to do. We will never know what would happened the next minute. Overall, the tour is very educational and fruitful for me. You should visit it at least once.

Total Damage: Free
Ambiance: 3/5
Cleanliness: 3/5
Service: 3/5
Price: 5/5
Recommended?: Yes

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