On July 4, 1900, a young Japanese monk named Kawaguchi Ekai crossed the border from Nepal to Tibet. Already the first of his race to enter that isolated, mysterious country, he went on to become the First Japanese to reach the forbidden city of Lhasa. Though he mastered the Tibetan language and was able to travel in disguise, this unlikely and highly idiosyncratic explorer was otherwise woefully ill-equipped, yet somehow he overcame robbery, starvation, freezing conditions, illness and an appalling sense of direction. By the end of his remarkable he had gained a reputation as a doctor, studied at the ancient university of Sera and met the Dalai Lama himself, while keeping his identity secret for over a year.