Word: jayavarman
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...town of Siem Reap. Those are mostly bogged down with encyclopedic elucidations of Hindu and Buddhist iconography, with which Zhou hardly bothers. The Bayon, with its weird smiling heads, widely considered to be hybrids of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara's face and that of the Bayon's famous Buddhist builder, Jayavarman VII, is for Zhou simply a "gold tower." The few times he does play the amateur art historian or archaeologist, he gets it wrong, as when he mistakes a massive recumbent bronze Vishnu (now at Phnom Penh's National Museum) for a Buddha sculpture...
...historians, there's a weird irony in Cambodia's decrepit infrastructure. In the 12th century, King Jayavarman VII built highways that had few equals on earth. They can be seen from satellite photographs (although from the ground, few traces are apparent), with the longest running some 220 kilometers northwest to Phimai, in modern-day Thailand...
...airport or a one-way trip to some bug-infested jail. At Artisans D'Angkor, tel: (855-63) 964097, off Siem Reap's Sivatha Boulevard, talented youngsters turn out gorgeous wood and stone replicas of famous Khmer art. A mere $500 will get you a 50-centimeter-tall Jayavarman VII head. But be warned: it's authentic sandstone. Be sure to budget for the freight charges home...
...waters hold special religious significance for Hindus, thanks to the carvings commissioned by Jayavarman II. The despot ordered part of the river diverted temporarily so that hundreds of phallic images could be carved into the sandstone floors along a shady brook area. These lingams?which actually look no more raunchy than rounded bumps?are surrounded by square outlines that represent the vulva, as per Hindu tradition. Tourists can slosh right into the shallow river to touch or photograph the sculptures through the flowing water...
...water becomes holy by passing over this area before moving downstream to a series of tiered waterfalls. At the top, where Jayavarman II chose to bathe, he again had the river diverted so that the stone bed could be carved with an elaborate rendering of the Hindu god Vishnu. Vishnu is laying on the serpent Ananta, with his wife Lakshmi at his feet and a lotus flower protrudes from his navel bearing the god Brahma. Visitors can walk into the water to take pictures but are instructed not to touch the underwater carvings...