While most episodes explore the stone and water of Angkor, this episode turns to the man who saw it all when it was still breathing. In 1296, a Chinese diplomat named Zhou Daguan arrived in the Khmer capital of Angkor Thom, just decades after the fall of Jayavarman VII. For nearly a year, he kept a meticulous diary that remains our single most important window into daily life at the height of the empire. We look past the bas-reliefs and barays to discuss what Zhou recorded about royal funerals, the practice of widow burning, the role of women in commerce, and the vibrant multicultural society where merchants from Persia, India, and China traded side-by-side. This is not a story of gods and kings, but of the people who walked the streets, paid taxes in cloth, and lived under the shadow of the five towers.