"People say it's like a love story in a Bollywood movie," says Paul Rajesh, 34, who was born in Manali, a town in northern India's Himachal Pradesh state.
After his family resided in different parts of India, Paul returned to Manali to work at a hotel owned by his uncle. It was there that he met his future wife, Makiko, now 31, when she passed through in her backpacking days in 2003.
Makiko's first destination of the trip was the town of Leh in the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir state. It is there that the Ladakh festival is held every year, and Makiko wanted to see various troupes from different parts of Ladakh dance and sing to traditional music while wearing traditional costumes.