High in the barren Indian Himalayas, artists are chainsawing blocks of ice from a frozen river, creating what they hope will be the beginnings of India’s answer to China’s Harbin International Ice Festival.
So far the Kangsing collective have created what they call a “mini-colosseum,” a cafeteria and a sauna near the appropriately named village of Chilling in the northern region of Ladakh.
The installation at 3,350m serves as the takeoff point for a seven-day Chadar Trek along the surface of the frozen Zanskar river through breathtaking “frozen desert” scenery that has been shut for two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: AFP
“We’re thinking we might have a festival big enough, grand enough like Harbin International Festival, something where we can ask artists from all over the world to come and participate,” said Tashi, a member of the group who uses only one name.
For now the mini-colosseum stands just a little higher than the average person, but one day its creators hope to emulate the ice hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden.
The spot was selected for its lack of sunshine that might melt the ice and where whistling icy winds keep temperatures at a bone-chilling minus-17°C to minus-20°C throughout the day.
With some support from the local government, the group, which includes a doctor, has also built a sauna at the bank of the frozen river, where they raise the temperature to 60°C.
A hardy handful in their underpants then plunge straight into a pit outside, dug into the frozen Zanskar, to take an ice bath lasting about 1 minute — if they can take it.
“Its extraordinary and rejuvenating,” said an invigorated Tundup Gyaltsan, a local police officer. “You don’t feel the cold at all.”
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