Skiing resort of Gulmarg is now home to an igloo café touted to be the largest in the world.
Measuring 44.50 ft diameter with a height of 37.50 ft and 48 inch thick walls, the igloo café has tables and chairs made of ice.
Animal hides are placed on the ice chairs to ensure thermal insulation, as per the owner.
Fresh snow is sprayed on the igloo every day as it needs continuous maintenance. The café will remain open till mid-March.
It took us 64 days to set up the igloo, said the hotelier Syed Waseem Shah.
“It took 1,700 man-days to complete the igloo. Workers were engaged in double shifts with one group worked from 9 am to 4 pm and the other from 5 pm to 11 pm,” he was quoted as having said by The New Indian Express.
The cafe can can attend 40 customers at a time.
“The biggest Igloo so far had been set up in Switzerland and it figured in the Guinness Book of Records. It had a height of 33.8 ft with a diameter of 42.4 ft,” said Mr Shah, as per the report.
“We will contact Guinness officials to get our café recorded as the world’s biggest Igloo café,” said Mr Shah.
Gulmarg has been witnessing a huge tourist footfall for the past couple of winters.
