A new generation of pilgrims hits Goa’s hippie trail – from the NYTimes.

The first part of the article focuses on the decades-long hold of the place on alternative types, but then takes another turn:

But Goa’s most authentic spiritual experiences require a taxi ride into the past.

Snaking south into the lush Goan countryside, the cracked asphalt roads out of Anjuna pass scenes of daily Indian life that seem a world away from the Birkenstock-trod paths behind: fires burning amid roadside shanties; little boys playing cricket in an overgrown field; elderly Hindu women walking barefoot with baskets on their heads; ancient peepul and banyan trees. The succession flickers quickly past the half-lowered window like film images carried by the warm breeze.

The heads seem to bow especially low upon entering the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa, the ghost town of Baroque edifices that was once the splendid seat of Portugal’s Indian trade colony. The reason for their reverence lies in a deep alcove, where a fabulously wrought silver casket holds the remains of the most famous Western spiritual seeker ever to reach Goa’s shores: St. Francis Xavier.

Dispatched on a missionary voyage to the East in 1541, St. Francis, a Spanish-born Jesuit, stepped off a ship the next year and found himself in a prosperous international metropolis larger than London. As one French traveler observed, Goa’s boulevards were lined with "goldsmiths and bankers, as well as the richest and best merchants and artisans."

St. Francis journeyed all over the East, returning frequently to Goa before his death in China in 1552. His body was taken to Goa two years later. Today, Baroque churches, convents and cathedrals testify to the former splendor. Whitewashed, the spectral relics stand out against the green grassy expanses and encroaching jungle like a Catholic version of the Angkor temple complex.

Various photos of churches in Goa.