[JKT #1] Museum Nasional / Museum Gajah (National Museum of Indonesia) - PART 1

So after a short walk from Markas Paspampres, I reached the end of Jalan Tanah Abang 2 and saw Monas from across the street! Okay, now let's find a zebra cross...

...or maybe not. Yet.

At the end of Jalan Tanah Abang 2, on my right is the glorious Museum Nasional (National Museum of Indonesia), or as most Indonesians (including me) also like to call it Museum Gajah (Elephant Museum), due to the presence of an elephant statue in front of the museum, that serves as its icon.

I was planning to go there after Monas, as it was still 8am and I thought Museum Gajah wasn't open yet at that time (I thought it was open at 9am). But hey, let's take some photos of the front side of the building first before crossing the street to Monas...

Gedung Arca, the additional building of Museum Nasional / Museum Gajah

Museum Gajah consists of 2 main buildings:

1. The original one is an old Dutch-style colonial building, which was erected in 1862 and established by the Dutch colonials to hold research and collection of Dutch Indies (the future Indonesia) history and heritage. It was officially open for public in 1868.
2. The new one (as we see on the photo above) is called Gedung Arca (Statue/Sculpture Building) and was added at the beginning of the 21st century. This is the building that is right at the end of Jalan Tanah Abang 2.

The original building of Museum Nasional / Museum Gajah

And here's the original building, which is already more than 150 years old and still keeps most of its original form intact. Too bad its front side is currently on renovation... but of course hopefully when it's done it will look even more gorgeous than before.

Yep that's the cute little elephant in front of the building, the one I mentioned previously. Let's take a closer look at it, shall we?

The 4 sides of the elephant statue in front of Museum Nasional / Museum Gajah

Right, this cute little elephant has been standing here since 1871 (wow, I bet its feet must've been stiff from all that standing... hehe) as a gift from the then-Thai king, Rama V, who visited the museum that year.

If we see closely below the elephant (click on the photo above to view it in full size), there's a writing on each side with different languages:

1. The front side is in Dutch (the language of the colonial government who ruled Indonesia at that time), written: Geschenk van... bla bla bla.
2. The right side is in Thai (the native language of the government who generously gave this gift to the museum).
3. The left side is in Arabic (a well-known language in Dutch Indies, as there were a lot of merchants from the Arab world, and obviously the majority of Indonesian people are also Muslims).
4. Aand the back side (AKA the butt side) is in Indonesian, written: Hadiah dari Yang Mulia (A Gift from His Majesty)... bla bla bla.

Really, the butt side? Such a way to show who was in charge and who was the oppressed at that time.

So basically we can also see a glimpse of history by looking closely at this cute elephant.

-redPacker