I get a cup of hot coffee and a piece of cake
The roads are not so bad today, but in the rainy season it can be quite difficult,” said Glennis Setabandhu as we waited for a battered truck to slowly make its way down the steep boulder-strewn road. “Sometimes their trucks can't make it all the way and guests have to hike down. Once they get here, I get a cup of hot coffee and a piece of cake in them and all is well."
At just about 5ft tall, slightly stooped with age, dressed in a long navy skirt with a flowered cardigan, 81-year-old, Australian-born Setabandhu, or Pa Glen as she’s known locally (pa being Thai for ‘auntie’), is not the type of person you’d expect to find running a guesthouse deep in the wild mountain forests around Pilok in western Thailand. But she has been for almost 30 years.
The entrance to Setabandhu’s guesthouse displays stickers, banners and T-shirts of the off-road driving clubs who have stopped here over the years. Inside, a small glass chandelier hangs over dining tables set with lace doilies. The walls are hung with old photos of Setabandhu’s family posed in their best finery, as well as snapshots of her son Narin, her grandchildren and the numerous visitors she’s welcomed over the years.
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