the hotel i stayed in at jakarta was a few minutes away from some interesting places to visit within the city.  spending a minimum fare of idr15 by taxi, i went to check museum nasional, jakarta’s national museum.

it is also known as the elephant house due to the bronze elephant statue that is found infront of the main building which was donated by a king from thailand,  chulalongkorn in late 1800’s.

it is also called as the house of statues because of the number of statues exhibited inside the museum.

the lobby, central and atrium hall has a collection of hindu-buddhist art of ancient indonesia. these sculptures, relics and inscriptions was collected from dfferent parts of the country.

i spent some time in fascination of the intricate details of most of these statues.  i ‘ve always had this interest on archaeology.

a hindu royalty and his wife.

there were a lot of stones like these with inscriptions.

this is one of the levels which is part of the museum’s new wing.

inscriptions, footprints, drawing of insects carved on a rock.

a collection of some stone age artifacts such as fossilized skull and skeleton of homo species are found in the prehistoric collection

bracelets can be this difficult to make.

i noticed the asmat canoe which is a long carved narrow boat used as transportation by the asmat people, an ethnic group in papua province in indonesia.  the body is made of either mangrove or coconut wood carved by hollowing out the mid-section of the log lengthwise.

here’s a desperate attempt to take a picture of myself, lol.

there was a group of elementary students who just arrived when i was to leave the building for their educational field trip.

entrance fee is idr 10.00 for foreign nationals and the museum is open from 8.30 am to 2.30 pm  on tuesday, wednesday, thursday and sunday; from 8.30  am to 11.30 am on friday; and from 8.30 am to 1.30 pm  on saturday. closed on mondays.