You can't be first to row across the Pacific. A teen-ager has reached the South Pole. Wilfred Thesiger already crossed the Open Quarter of the Sahara, more than once.

On one of those sleepy, dull Chiangmai mornings, when you drink a three-in-one coffee and feel  you couldn't possibly even look at another elephant ride or bungee jump, I opened my email, and  found a message from my good friend, and in this case savior, Kevin Shane Barry, owner of Track of the Tiger Tours, asking me if I would like to go, as part of a two man team, to be the first people ever to trace the river at Doi Saket.

I jumped at the chance. Not only would the project renew my interest in life, I had been considering hanging myself just as a change of pace, but it would team me up with Shane's right hand man, Reinier, who had been my adventure partner in an infamous canoe trip on the Maekok River, and who will be accompanying me on an even more infamous trip down the entire Mekong, as soon as we can find someone foolish enough to pay our way. Although river tracing is a fairly new sport, in Thailand, it has been known for years in Europe and the USA.

Everyone has heard the stories about that maniac Captain Webb, who rode over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Outwardly, we say he is crazy. But down deep, doesn’t plunging down all that white water sound like a good time?

But have you ever considered going up a waterfall?

River tracing, is a new sport, where, not only do you climb up the waterfalls, but you climb up and over every rock and obstacle in the river, tracing it to its source.

Reinier and I entered the river during the dry season, so we weren't exactly inundated with water. There was no swimming involved, but the low river presented other problems, as we had to scale, rather than swim over even the smallest stones. Spending long periods of time in the jungle can be a bit depressing because you can see neither the sun nor the sky, because of the canopy of dense foliage over head.

Tracing wide rivers has the benefit of being able to see the sky. Tracing a narrow river, like the one at Doi Saket, and running through a typically overgrown Thai jungle, you quickly realize that the river is the only way to go. Attempts to walk beside, or even to get out of, the river will be thwarted by a thick tangle of jungle vines.

But at Doi Saket, the problem was the vegetation, which hung down, from above. We were constantly getting tangled in thorns, vines, and spider webs. And, of course, in Thailand, before grabbing or cutting a vine you want to make sure that it isn't a man eating snake. The vines themselves can be fairly formidable, as almost every living thing in Thailand is covered with thorns. Gloves would probably have been a good addition to our gear.

The best part of river tracing is climbing up the waterfalls.