Sigiriya Signs

This sign from the city fortress of Sigiriya made us laugh, but you have to admit it gets its message across quickly. I'm not sure how big the danger really was. Further up, near the summit, you could see nests of what may have been hornets. But so many Indian monuments (including the Taj Mahal, if I recall correctly) have nests of bee or hornets or wasps, and I never saw any warnings like this. Any entomologists out there know about noise-hating wasps?

On the same level where you could see some nests was a cage with thin wire mesh over it. One of the guidebooks said this was the get into in case of hornet attack! This was surely set up for the gardeners or caretakers, though -- in other words people more likely to stir up the insects with more than just noise. Anyway, we didn't see any hornets flying around, and we didn't have to make a break for the cage. This was just as well -- it was small, and I could see a lifeboat-style crisis developing over who was going to get to take refuge in the cage.



As for this sign, can we be forgiven for thinking at first it meant "no handicapped people"? Anyway, Sigiriya is the opposite of accessible, with a million steps, so only reasonably mobile people were there. And they did need to be told not to sit on the stone-slab throne to the right.