We backtracked down the stairs to the Main Dharma Hall, where a golden Buddha dominated the room, flanked by Bodhisattvas.

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At the cavernous, Buddha-filled Baltimore salon where Ms. Stephens is employed, her fellow stylists find her archaeology work a bit mysterious.

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But that destruction has largely been forgotten as tourists flock to the newly renovated pagoda complex, where elaborate halls and temples venerate the Buddha.

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There are only so many small boats that can go up the Mekong to see the Pak Ou caves, with their hundreds of Buddha figures, and so many vehicles that can drive the winding roads to the remote ethnic villages, where people who have never fully integrated into Lao society live unwired, in simple wooden houses on stilts as they have for centuries.

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