An English family travel from a small town in Norfolk in search of Rumtek Monastery, in Sikkim. When the Karma Kagya sect fled Tibet, from the invading Chinese in 1959, they carried their ancient relics, statues and sacred objects across the Himalayas. Andrew, Cherry, and five-year-old son Thomas, go in search of this Shangri-la, carrying notebooks, pens, a globe and educational books for the young monks of Rumtek. They cannot get there unless they travel, illegally, on a donkey, across the mountains. So instead, staying with two Tibetan girls, and their old father, they find a much greater treasure.