Since moving to Indonesia a few of months ago, I've followed just about every piece of advice from my predecessor Jewel Topsfield (and her husband Edwin).

They probably deserve a lifetime achievement award for patience and good humour as I have bombarded them with questions about life in the Big Durian.

But it's time to break my "always do what Jewel says" rule.

I have to tell you about Jakarta's traffic which is famously, spectacularly awful.

The population of greater Jakarta is something like 30 million people. Something like 12 million people travel through the city during rush hour.

The city finally has only just started building a first metro train line, decades behind cities like Singapore, Manila and Kuala Lumpur and public transport consists mostly of buses and slow commuter trains.

My seven kilometre drive to work can take anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours depending on when I leave.

A strict "odds and evens" number plate system operates on main roads during peak (6am-10am, 4pm-8pm).

The system replaced the previous system which required three or more people to be in a car at certain times of the day. A cottage industry of professional passengers sprung up after that system was introduced - people who would, for a small fee, sit in your car so you could take to the roads.

The new system works OK, but traffic is still a nightmare.

Ministerial motorcades, taxis, Go-Jeks and Grabs (popular and cheap car and motorcycle ride hailing services) swarm the roads of the capital.

On one common route, for example, since the 1980s, the average speed of traffic has declined from 24.7km/h, to 19.2km/h in 2000 to just 9.4km/h by 2011.

Motorcycle taxis are definitely the quickest way to get around. But with a two-year-old and three month old twins to get around, I had to conquer my fears and get back behind the wheel.

So before the family arrived in Jakarta I got behind the wheel of the ageing Fairfax mobile on a "quiet" Saturday afternoon.

My target was our office in central Jakarta.

The 14km round trip would take me down Jalan Asia-Africa and then up Jalan Sudirman, with the trickiest part the huge Selamat Datang roundabout/monument.

This is an intersection that has to be seen to be believed. After six months navigating it, I'm still not sure how many lanes it is officially supposed to have.

Usually there are between five and seven lanes of traffic, depending on the time of day, the number of buses barging across two lanes and the number of motorcycles attempting to thread non-existent gaps.

My first trip was a heart stopper which began with a massive "thump", a pothole reminding me that I was no longer on the pristine roads of Canberra, Melbourne or Sydney.

Painted lines on the roads are occasional. When there are lines, it seems almost mandatory that cars straddle two lanes for no apparent reason. The nicer the car, the more often this seems to happen, and the slower the Mercedes or BMW is driving

No one drives fast in Jakarta - it just isn't possible. But being stuck on 20 km/h, when a speedy 35km/h might be possible is immensely frustrating.

From the front seat of a four wheeler, the scooter riders that flit past on both sides of seem to have a death wish.

One of the stand-out features are the self-appointed traffic wardens who, on particularly busy main roads, hang about and help people make a U-turn at a tricky spot by walking out into the traffic and waving their arms around to stop the rush, just for a moment.

Payment is a silver coin or three - 10 to 30 cents - pressed into their hands by the driver.

Eventually, after a nerve-wracking 45 minutes and seven kilometres - including a hair-raising seven  minutes through that infamous roundabout, cutting across all five lanes of traffic so I could hang a left - I completed my first leisurely Saturday afternoon trip to the office.

I was overjoyed. I also didn't know where to park.

So after hyperventilating for a few minutes, and sending a "victory" text message to my wife, I did the only thing I could.

I pulled back out into the traffic and started the slow drive home.