It’s Michael Sawyer’s twenty-first birthday and he’s depressed. Unhappy in his work, unable to think of a different career, he’s also broken-hearted. His first love broke up with him after a few months. It came out of nowhere, when Michael believed they were both in love. She was from West Germany and they worked at the same London hotel. She’s since returned to her home in Heidelberg. A month after their relationship ended, Michael was flipping through a newspaper, and noticed an advert in the classified columns. Overland to Kathmandu—it caught his attention. Having never heard of the destination, but guessing it was far away, it meant leaving England for several months. He’d never been abroad before. Michael saw a way to change his life.

In the sixties half the Western world seemed to go to Kathmandu to discover itself. Michael, broken-hearted, decides to do the same.