Night museum tour blasts residents back to old Jakarta

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

For one group of Jakarta residents, Saturday night was the night when the city's former colonial grandeur appeared to return to life, if only for a few hours.

Saturday's night museum tour by the group Sahabat Museum (Museum Friends) gave around 180 participants in Kota, West Jakarta, a window back to the 17th century, when the Dutch ruled and the city went by a different name: Batavia.

Sahabat Museum coordinator Ade Purnama said the community held its tours to teach the younger generation about Jakarta's history.

"It's good to know your own history, the history of Jakarta in particular, instead of always going to malls and ending up finding boredom there," he said.

Museum security guards, standing at the entrance to Bank Mandiri wearing old-style military uniforms and carrying rifles, greeted guests on their arrival.

Sixty-two-year-old Woro Dhewati Soeparto said she was thrilled at the chance to go along with the tour.

"I'm an adventurer and I'm so excited about being here. It's not only the history of Jakarta I'm curious about, but also the scenery of the buildings around here at night," she said.

Woro, who has lived on North Jakarta's Jl. Angke since 1930, was one of several older guests who joined the tour to get in touch with their feelings of nostalgia.

Yvonne, 77, said she came along after being invited by her daughter, and said she was amazed by the memories that hit her before the tour even started.

"I'm recalling what it was like in the past, comparing what the bank is like now to what it was like (then)," she said.

"There was a time when the bank's employees were very active. There were also so many Dutch employees here. But the bank is so quiet now," said Yvonne, who has lived in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, for her entire life.

The bank was established on Feb. 27, 1826, by the Dutch, who named it Factorij and made it the first local arm of the Netherlands-based Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij (NHM).

In 1960, 15 years after the Indonesia declared its independence, the bank was nationalized, ending its days as the bank for colonial planters once and for all.

The government changed Factorij's name to the Cooperative Bank for Farmers and Fishermen, an institution focused on exports and imports.

In 1968, the government changed the bank's name to Bank Ekspor Impor. In 1999, the bank changed its name again to Bank Mandiri, which was born after Bank Ekspor Impor, Bank Dagang Negara, Bank Bumi Daya and Bank Pembangunan Indonesia were merged together into a single state-owned institution.

Standing on 10,039 square meters of land with 21,000 square meters of floor-space, the bank remains a silent testament to the march of time. The building's most remarkable feature is it's 924-square-meter safe room.

After Bank Mandiri, the next stage of trip was a convoy of two-seater bikes driven by local bicycle taxi drivers.

The bicycle rides took 10 minutes in thick traffic to reach the next stop on the tour, North Jakarta's Maritime Museum.

Standing on the edge of the port of Sunda Kelapa, the Maritime Museum is made up of antique buildings still standing at this once-great international port, including the historic Syah Bandar tower.

The 135-meter tower was initially built in 1600s and renovated in 1839, according to Bank Mandiri Museum historian Kartum Setiawan.

Local people compare the tower, he said, to the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa for its own precarious tilt toward a main street.

According to Kartum, the tower's off-kilter angle is the result of a combination of unstable foundations and the vibrations of passing buses and trucks.

"The tower will definitely collapse one day if no immediate action is taken," he said.

The tower, he said, was a watch tower operated by the then Verenigde Ost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) -- the Dutch East India Company.

Participants were then taken to Jakarta's poultry market bridge, a three minute bicycle ride from the Maritime Museum.

Kartum said the bridge, which was built in 1628, once led directly to the poultry market.

Sitting in a state of disrepair, the wooden bridge crosses the Kali Besar River, which, in the days before cars, was one of the city's main thoroughfares.

The bridge, Kartum said, was once an important connection between the east of the river, where the Dutch Embassy was located, to the west of the river, where England had its embassy.

"The bridge is now called the Jembatan Kota Intan (Diamond City Bridge) because it is where a fortress called Benteng Intan (Diamond Fortress) once stood," he said.

The journey took the participants back to the Bank Mandiri Museum where they enjoyed a live Keroncong Tugu music performance.

Kartum said Keroncong Tugu's melodious songs were influenced by Portuguese marooned in the village of Kampung Tugu in Marunda, North Jakarta.

The history of Kampung Tugu began, he said, when the VOC defeated the Portuguese in the Malacca straight, taking the vanquished Portuguese as prisoners and slaves.

"The VOC freed the Portuguese in 1700s after (the Portuguese), who were Catholics, converted to Protestantism -- the religion of most Dutch," he said.

"(The Portuguese) and their descendants have lived in Kampung Tugu in Marunda, Cilincing, since then."

The journey wrapped up with a history lecture on the Bank Mandiri Museum itself and the screening of a history documentary.