Paddy Museum — Attraction in Kedah

This museum is nice but not friendly to elderly people and OKU. I bring my 70ish old grandma to this museum since she hasn't visited this place since her early days. When you arrive, you need to climb very high stairs in order to reach the front door of the museum. No lift for elderly, no concrete slabs for wheelchair users or strollers.

Even when you get in, there's stairs everywhere. There's one lift but it is only connected to the ground floor (this museum has 3 floors), which is connected to the souvenirs site or artifact display. The lift can only fit 3 people at a time. Those handicap groups can't reach the 3rd floor, which is the most important floor in the museum.

In my first picture, it was the stairs leading to the 3rd floor. The 3rd floor is the moving platform that showcases 360° painting of paddy fields. Again just to remind you, my grandma is very old and has a pretty bad eyesight. The stairs leading up were very dark, I even need to use my flashlight to shine the pathway so that my grandma won't trip. The stairs are also very high. It took us minutes to arrive there, and we're very sorry for the people behind us.

Also another thing that I am wondering...why there's only 1 exit even though there's a lot of doors leading outside from the museum?? And the exit is the most far away from the parking lot??? The exit that they opened was the exit to the toilet, which is at the BACK of the museum. We need to walk under the scorching sun (you know how hot the weather here is) for minutes to get to the parking lot, which is IN FRONT of the museum. You can just open 2 exit doors, one leading to the toilet and another to the parking lot?? It's not that hard.

Mind you, I bring my GRANDMA here because she really loves this place and she wants to go here when she still can walk. But the service and conditions of this place makes the experience so lame. I hope you guys do something about this. At least put an escalator or something so that all people from all walks of life could use it, including disabled people. Museum should be accessible to everyone, not for youngsters or healthy person.

Thank you for coming to...

When I found out that we're going to this museum, I thought this wouldn't be the best use of time during our overnight stay in Alor Setar. I was very wrong. The museum is worth a visit just to experience its panoramic mural. Yes, 'experience', not just view it. As we enter the museum, we immediately saw a staircase with a sign that said it led to the peak of Gunung Keriang. That confused me. The mountain is opposite the museum. How does the sign make sense? An employee explained that what we would see is "just a painting" that shows the view from the mountaintop. Nope, it was more than that. Climb the steps and you reach a revolving deck with plenty of seats. The deck inches its way through a 360-turn in maybe less than 20 minutes. And that's the way to appreciate the 103m mural, which covers the entire wall. Sit down and take in all the details. The mural depicts the various phases of rice cultivation in Kedah and also various aspects of life, sometimes from bygone days, in the state's rice-farming communities. I found it mesmerising. Its scale, technical strengths and sweet earnestness are impressive. There's so much depth, colour and brightness. Some of the imagery comes across as sentimental and staged, but it didn't bother me because it all seemed so cheerfully done. I later found out that 60 North Korean artists worked on this mural. I think that explains a lot. My main complaint about this feature is that there should be more help for visitors to understand what they're looking at. I had to dig deep into the fast fading memory of my primary school lessons. Yes, we were taught the basics of rice cultivation in Malaysia back then. The rest of the museum had a lot of displays relating to rice cultivation, especially in relation to Kedah. It was interesting as well but could have been less static, especially with the aid of multimedia. If you're in Alor Setar and can spare a couple of hours to learn a thing or two about the importance of rice in Malaysia, get yourself to...

I would like to give more than 3 starts but:

1. The only interesting things on the 1st floor was the summary of history about paddy in kedah on the pillars. The rest was wasted on oil paintings. More of related history would be better.

2. air conditioning was out and surprise surprise read a review that it was not functioning since 7 months ago? Come on! Put standing industrial fan at strategic places for the least. The museum was far from other tourist attractions in kedah and people was actually making an effort to go there out of interest. A lil bit of effort from the management would be highly appreciated. Plus Kedah weather is not that forgiving. There is entrance fee by the way.

3. there is a nice toilet building outside the museum but, it was filthy! Totally unusable. Does any of the. Management staffs ever check it out? Isn't anyone incharge of the management of the facility? I mean come on! This is basic necessity.

4. there is 360 rotating observation deck looking over a painting. But there is neither audio nor written explanation. You just sit there and look at the painting while the deck is rotating slowly.

5. the actual saving grace of this museum are exhibitions at the lower floor. There are many interesting tools and related information to paddy and activities related to it.

I can't enjoy myself at this museum as i was desperately holding my bladder from bursting and the super hot condition was not helping either.

I was looking forward to go here as it was highly recommended by my cousin. But sad to report i was rather disappointed. I hope the management will take immediate action...