Srinagar

India's first Igloo Cafe started by the Kolahoi Green Hotel & Resorts in Gulmarg opened on Friday for the second consecutive year.

The staff of Kolahoi group said that this year's Igloo is much bigger than the one they had built last year.

The management of the Igloo Cafe said the concept of a snow cafe has been a big success in Switzerland, Finland and Canada, and the response to the Igloo Cafe in the ski resort of Gulmarg has been quite encouraging.

This year's Igloo is 38-ft high and 44-ft in diameter and is enough to accommodate around three dozen guests. Last year, the snow cafe was 12.5-ft high and 22-ft in diameter, which could accommodate 4 tables for 16 guests at one time.

The construction of this year's Igloo was done by a team of around 20 members headed by Syed Waseem Shah and the Kolahoi group team working in shifts.

The project was completed in two months. To make the seating arrangements comfortable, sheep hides have been used to make a person sitting on snow feel warm while tables and benches are all made of snow and ice.

Dozens of people booked tables for Friday's opening and the cafe is likely to remain functional till the end of February.

A guest can spend about one hour inside the Igloo or till he/she feels cold. To give it a traditional touch, Kashmiri artworks with hand engraved copper samovar have been placed inside.

The management claims that this is the biggest igloo cafe in the world and they have applied for the Guinness World Record.

An igloo is a snow house or a snow hut built of snow. Air pockets trapped inside the snow act as insulators to prevent the igloo from becoming intolerably cold.