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SCMP Reporter

From the Stasi secret police's mail-tampering equipment to the surfboard of Hawaiian watersport pioneer Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, the displays in the world's best offbeat museums inspire the curious visitor with the enthusiasm

of the collector.

Museo Oro del Peru (Gold Museum of Peru), Lima

The display cases glitter with the madness-inspiring metal that drove the Conquistadors to pillage half a continent and slay an Inca king. The largest private gold museum in the world is home to treasures from three millennia of Peruvian culture, including ponchos of woven gold, lavish head-dresses, earlobe plugs and elaborate gilded masks and breastplates. A trepanned human skull, inset with a gold plate that has fused across the hole, shows how brain surgery was successfully performed 700 years ago in pre-Hispanic Peru. The adjacent Arms of the World collection bristles with cannon, jewelled daggers andthe sword, allegedly, of Conquistador Numero Uno himself, Francisco

Pizarro. Open daily 11.30am to 7pm, entry 25 soles ($60). Avenida Alonso de Molina, Monterrico, Lima, tel: 51 1 345 1291.

Gulangyu Piano Museum, Xiamen, Fujian, China

Leafy Gulangyu  is  known as Piano Island. Its unique museum overlooking the sea is home to about 30 antique pianos and pianolas accumulated by Gulangyu-born Chinese-Australian Michel Wu. He moved the collection to the mainland after it had languished for years in a Melbourne warehouse and established the Piano Museum in 2000. 'A piano is a beautiful object and should be respected,' he says. 'I felt sorry seeing them being discarded. I even rescued some before they went to the tip.' When Hu sits down to play, an enthusiastic crowd always gathers to listen. Open 10am to 5pm, Monday to Saturday, entry 10 yuan. 45 Huangyan Road, Gulangyu, tel: 86 591 257 0331; www.xiamen.gov.cn/xmpiano.

National Jewellery Treasury, Tehran, Iran

An emerald the size of a tail-light blazes from the crown of Iran's last empress. Twinkling around it is the gem-encrusted trove of the Iranian crown jewels. The mullahs who, in 1979, succeeded the self-aggrandising shah and his empress understood there was nothing so enthralling to the masses as a glimpse of unattainable riches. These astonishing thrones, pendants, necklaces, scimitars, scabbards and tiaras make the British crown jewels look like baubles from a cut-rate kingdom. Which is how Persia's 17th-century Shah Abbas the Great viewed Europe's sideshow monarchies. Open 2pm to 4.30pm Saturday to Tuesday, entry 30,000 rials ($30). Central Bank of Iran, Ferdowsi Avenue, Tehran, tel: 98 21 6446 3785.

Surfworld, Torquay, Victoria, Australia (below)

From a 1960s  Volkswagen Kombi van to wave tanks, it is all here in the spiritual home of Australian surfing. Torquay, Victoria's

'surf city', is also home to a multimillion-dollar surfing apparel manufacturing industry. As well as housing the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame, the museum features memorabilia, movies and interactive screens; see how a wave is formed, learn the difference between point and reef breaks, and trace the evolution of the surfboard from Hawaiian Duke Paoa Kahanamoku's 1910 redwoods to today's polyfoam 'thrusters'. Open daily 9am to 5pm, entry A$8 ($48). Surfcoast Plaza, Beach Road, Torquay, tel: 61 3 5261 4606; www.surfworld.org.au.

Stasi Secret Police Museum, Leipzig, Germany (below centre)

When the former headquarters of the Stasi secret police were thrown open, East Germans learned that at least 170,000 of their fellow citizens had been informing on them. At what is known as Das Museum in der Runden Ecke (the Museum on the Round Corner), there are detention cells, maps pinpointing Leipzig's 9,960 informers, mail-tampering equipment and swab jars holding the body scents of suspects who could thereafter be tracked by sniffer dogs. That this secret policemen's  hall was  exposed by peaceful citizens is the heartening message of this display of banal evil. Open daily 10am to 6pm, admission free. Dittrichring 24, Leipzig, tel: 49 341 961 24 43; www.runde-ecke-leipzig.de.

Arktikum Museum, Rovaniemi, Finland (above)

The Arktikum sits on the Arctic Circle. This beautiful building - its structure resembles a whale's ribcage - is both the Provincial Museum of Lapland and a scientific research centre. The Arktikum is a repository of everything from Siberian shaman costumes and 'Arctic raincoats' (made from seal intestines) to rich lore about whales, walruses,

reindeer and huskies. From the dogsleds and kayaks, Inuit music and linguistic maps, all that's missing are the stuffed remains of Rudolph, Prancer and Dancer. Open daily 10am

to 6pm, entry Euro8.50 ($85). Pohjoisranta 4, Rovaniemi, tel: 358 16 322 3260; www.arktikum.fi.



Quirky museums