Traffic Jammin’

You said it.

If Jakarta’s most notable features were in a competition for a Gold medal, surely traffic would beat out the grimace-inducing public art, and bottle-neck causing Kaki Limas (and with time to spare).  For it is traffic that compels every person, be they a resident or visitor, to  let out an exasperated sigh, and utter “traffic” as you would some four letter expletive, at some point (but more likely, at multiple ones) during their tenure in the city.

Sometimes I wonder why this is the case.  After all, don’t we all occassionally wish for an excuse to do nothing at all.  Friends often muse, “If I only had time to, I would read that book/learn to knit/write that novel” and yet when given loads of time (and in a cozy, temperature-controlled environment to boot), it seems all we can think of is getting on with things.

Jakarta’s traffic is 25% less boring than your average Asian country.

Jakarta’s slow-as-mud pace of traffic conditions you to inching your way to a destination.  So much so that when your driver actually hits a stretch of smooth sailing (perhaps on a an early morning toll road, or during Idul Fitri) you feel like you are flying!  “Why are we going so fast?”  asks a worried child as the speedometer trebles over 40mph.

Indeed,  these bursts of speed are as close to feeling like Danica Patrick as I am likely to ever come.  So, perhaps traffic does have its merits.  Now if you’ll excuse me I need to finish my industrial rock song/traffic anthem, “MACET sekali! Macet SEKALI!.”

SMOOOTH? That might be false advertising.