The compact market town of Hpa-An on the Thanlwin (Salween) River serves as a congenial base for trips around the beautiful limestone Zwegabin massif to its southeast. Rising in spectacular fashion from the surrounding rice paddy, the foot of the jungle-draped mountain is honeycombed with hidden cave temples, pagodas and other sacred sites, among them the photogenic Kyauk Kalap, or Water Lake Monastery, whose stupa crowns the top of a slender pillar of rock.