Maggie Walsh, a freelance photo-journalist with a penchant for dangerous situations, receives a tip that the Dalai Lama is dead. In McLeod Ganj, home of the Tibetan community in exile, she confirms the truth of the tip, but before she can get out with her photographs, she is apprehended. While detained, she gets to know a young monk, and when he announces he is going into Tibet to follow the oracle to find the Dalai Lama's reincarnation, she persuades him to take her with him. It is the beginning of an extraordinary physical and spiritual adventure as they first locate the newly born child, and then attempt to return to McLeod Ganj without alerting the Chinese.