In the autumn of 1939, Heinrich Harrer, the famous Austrian mountaineer, and his countryman Peter Aufschnaiter, set out to climb Nanga Parbat, one of the highest peaks in the Himalayas. The self-centered Harrer, whose sole preoccupation was the achievement of fame and glory, would experience an emotional awakening on his fantastic journey that would take him form the heights of conquest to the depths of internment in a British prisoner-of-war camp, then from escape and a harrowing two-year trek through the Himalayas to the mysterious Tibetan city of Lhasa.

As a stranger in a strange land which few westerners have ever visited, Harrer was befriended by the young Dalai Lama, and was asked to tutor the religious leader in English, geography and the ways of the Western world. He would eventually spend seven years in Tibet, during a period of tremendous political upheaval in that country, graced with the friendship and the spiritual enlightenment of the young Dalai Lama. As the deep and abiding bond between these two isolated, lonely people evolved, the selfish and egotistical Harrer experienced selflessness for the first time, allowing him to complete the emotional transformation which began on his way to Lhasa.