The Aceh Tsunami Museum is the essential stop for understanding modern Banda Aceh. Its exhibitions explain the 26 December 2004 earthquake and tsunami through survivor accounts, maps, photographs, and reconstructed spaces that make clear the scale of what happened without turning grief into spectacle.
The building itself is part of the experience. Narrow, dark entry corridors evoke the pressure and disorientation of the wave, before opening into brighter memorial rooms. It is emotionally heavy, and it should be. Pair it with PLTD Apung 1 or the Boat on the Roof if you want to see how far inland the water carried real objects.