8 Magazine

Instant Adventure

Want to experience a different kind of exciting activity? Lawaan, Eastern Samar is the right place for you. There are five falls in Lawaan at Brgy. Guinub-an. One of it is the Ban-awan Falls which is the largest of them all. It is around 300 feet above sea level, a level-three waterfall which is an hour climb away on an above average trail.

According to locals, it is named Ban-awan because long-ago, local hunters hunted wild animals. They washed their prey in the waters, pagban-aw, in the dialect meant to wash. So, the falls was called Ban-awan, “a place to wash”. 30 meters from its foot, Ban-awan, flows down to Amandaraga falls, a smaller fall, where you can do water adventures.

It was called Amandaraga because the waters looked like a maiden’s flowing hair (daraga in the dialect meant maiden). Amandaraga falls cascades and flows into the long and rolling Bulusao River where you can go tubing. Tubing is a sport or recreation of floating down a stream or river in an inner tube. It is well-known in other rivers around the country.