In 1949, a young student finds his life upturned. Expelled from Thailand's top university, Archin Panchaphon is sent away from the city by his father to the wilderness of southern Thailand. Arriving at a mining camp, Archin embarks on a four year odyssey of self-discovery, a university course in life that will take from him the last days of youth and return him a gift far greater. There on a tin dredge, among the bosses and miners, he will learn to live to the simple rhythms of river and season, work and play, love and loss. There Archin will find, finally, himself and graduate a man. Because sometimes, higher learning can be found in the ground beneath your feet. The portrait of a young man's coming of age in a time when simply growing up was education enough.