Ugyen lives in
Thimphu with his grandmother. He has completed four of his five mandatory years of training as a government teacher. However, he does not enjoy teaching and dreams of moving to
Australia to become a singer. When he is assigned to teach in the remote mountain village of
Lunana, he considers quitting his job, but his grandmother urges him to complete his teaching assignment. He decides to take it and leaves the city. Ugyen meets Michen, a village guide who leads him up the six-day-long path to Lunana, a village with a population of 56 people, 4800 meters above sea level. The villagers are excited by his arrival, but Ugyen, appalled by the poor conditions of the village, expresses his regret at coming and asks to be taken back. Asha, the village leader, informs him that the mules need time to rest and he can take Ugyen back in a few days. The next morning, Ugyen is awoken by Pem Zam, the class captain, who tells him the children are waiting for him in the classroom. Ugyen is taken aback by their affection for him, as the children believe teachers have the ability to “touch the future”. He decides to stay and teach for the remainder of the year. Ugyen returns the next day better prepared to teach and improvises a solution to the lack of a blackboard by writing directly on the wall with charcoal. Michen later constructs a makeshift blackboard for him. Ugyen slowly makes improvements to the classroom, including sacrificing the paper covering his windows when the children quickly run out of scarce writing material. Asha suggests that the teacher may have been a yak in a past life, as yaks are prized in the community. Ugyen quickly becomes a favorite of the children, performing songs on his guitar and teaching them maths, English, and Dzongkha. They are sad when they learn that Ugyen plans to leave when winter comes and will not return. Ugyen later meets Saldon, the niece of Asha, as she sings a local song atop a hillside. She tells him that she sings it daily as an offering to the mountain spirits, and he asks her to teach it to him. They meet daily, and he slowly learns how to sing it himself. She says it is called
Yak Lebi Lhadar, and it was written by a local
yak herder who lamented having to slaughter his favorite yak for the good of the village; the last verse is sung from the perspective of the yak, promising to return to its owner one day. Saldon later gifts Ugyen a yak, Norbu, so that he can use its dung to start fires. Because of the cold, Ugyen must keep Norbu in the classroom, and it becomes a fixture of the lessons. Asha approaches Ugyen with news that winter is approaching and it is time for him to leave before the pass is covered in snow. He asks Ugyen to come back the following spring, but Ugyen says that he intends to leave Bhutan for good, disappointing him. He breaks the news to Saldon, reassuring her that a better teacher will come in the spring, but Saldon says that only the children can be the judges of that and they all love Ugyen. She hopes he will come back someday and perform
Yak Lebi Lhadar for her. Ugyen leaves Lunana after a heartfelt goodbye from the villagers. Pem Zam gives him a letter from all the children, and Saldon gifts him a white scarf. Asha sings
Yak Lebi Lhadar as he departs, and Michen informs Ugyen that Asha originally wrote the song, but has not sung since his wife's death some years earlier. Ugyen later reads the letter from the children, in which they thank him, call him their favorite teacher, and urge him to return in the spring. On the way down the mountain, Ugyen stops at a shrine and leaves an offering for safe passage, saying that he hopes to return. The end of the film shows Ugyen singing a Western song in a bar in Australia, where nobody is paying attention. Annoyed, he stops performing this song, the barkeeper complains that Ugyen is being paid to sing, the audience goes quiet and Ugyen begins to sing
Yak Lebi Lhadar leading into the closing credits. ==Cast==