A camera makes enemies; a sketchbook, friends. Firm in this belief, Irwin Allan Sealy carried to China just his pen and a book of blank pages. When the literary conference that took him there ends and his fellow writers return to India, Sealy stays on to travel the railroads of the north in search of a town reminiscent of his Himalayan hometown and a man who might resemble himself. Sign language, good will and plain luck see him through but, in a northern mining town known for its ancient Buddhist cave sculptures, Sealy finally comes to the conclusion that his other was unreachable, his hometown was one of a kind and his only hope was a pen, allowing him to record his memories, sketches and adventures along the way.