The old palace, built in 1887, has been converted to the Kelantan Traditional Royal Ceremonies Museum. It is a charming building and well worth visiting. The one advantage to come from COVID-19 is the directional arrows inside museums, designed to maintain social distancing. Ordinarily, you would enter a museum and not know which way to turn, or which route to take to see everything, but now that decision has been made for you. It’s a shame though that museum staff can’t bring themselves to smile and welcome visitors when this is a natural response anywhere outside of state-run institutions.
There is quite a bit of reading to do inside Istana Jahar as one learns of all the different rituals involved in weddings, births, and all ceremonial activities. And as you can see, yellow is the colour of royalty.
And this is the Royal Platform, used for ritual baths before marriage or before the circumcision of princes.
The building has a lovely veranda with beautiful wooden floors, and must have been a great place to entertain visitors.
There was another building around the back displaying weaponry as well as plenty of items used a royal transportation on view.
For many years, royal barges were far more common than road transport, and these barges were often highly decorated.
I think this boat is The Royal Barge…
And when you see the size of the Kelantan River, you can see why is was the main thoroughfare.
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