Annals of Adventure–Mekong Descent: Meet Australian Mick O’Shea. He’s on his way–by yak–to the Tibetan Plateau, the source of the Mekong River. Once he gets there, he plans to hop into a kayak and start paddling. His aim: to become the first human to paddle the Mekong from its beginning, at an elevation of 5224 meters, to its end, in the China Sea. That’s 3,000 miles of river, which passes through six nations (China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) and some of the most spectacular, untraveled backcountry on the planet (you can also follow Mick’s expedition here). For you geography buffs, the Mekong (which means “The Mother Of Waters” in Thai) is the 12th longest river in the world and ranks 10th in terms of sheer volume of water. We’re talking all sorts of ecologies, from Polar Desert to Tropical Rainforest, and the possibility of seeing (or running away from) an incredible array of fauna, like endangered Irrawaddy dolphins, crocodiles, Snow Leopards, Clouded Leopards, tigers, Sun Bear and Asian elephant. Oh yeah, there’s also more than 1,000 miles of kickass whitewater. Mick expects the entire voyage to take about 3 months. Wonder if he’ll come across any aging Viet Cong, hiding out in the dark interior and unaware that the Vietnam War ended 30 years ago? Bet he didn’t think of that…