cigars Archives - Wandering North

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Where to Smoke Cigars in Detroit

Detroit was a good cigar town. You can’t smoke everywhere, but patios seem to be fine and there are several cigar lounges.

In the downtown core there were four good spots.

La Casa Cigars and Lounge. This place had a well-stocked, walk-in humidor on one side and a bar/cigar lounge on the other. The humidor had the best selection of Foundation cigars I had seen (amongst many other brands) and the prices were very good. The bar side was casual with a pub-like feel. TVs and high-topped tables and bar seating, along with a few sofas. A good place to go and watch the game. What game? Any game. We went there twice and both times it was busy with a crowd, friendly, and a bit loud. A comfortable neighbourhood kind of place. It is also quite close to the baseball stadium, so it made for a good pre and post-game cigar spot.

The London Chop House aka LCH Cigar Lounge. I wrote about this place in my other Detroit post. It is a proper, old fashioned steak joint with all of the manly décor you would expect. It is dark, and fancy, yet cozy, with live jazz and a steakhouse-y menu. Iceberg wedge salads, garlic mashed potatoes, and various cuts of meat. Great cocktails and service. You cannot smoke in the restaurant, but upstairs is a bar with a small walk-in humidor and that bar is cigar friendly. You could go and visit only the lounge, but I think skipping the restaurant would be a mistake. It is just the perfect atmosphere, and I say this as a vegetarian. There was literally nothing on the menu that I could eat apart from asparagus and salad, and I still recommend it for the ambience, music, and service. (And the cigars, obviously.)

Uralli Cigar Bar. This is place is inside the Detroit Club – a private members’ club. The kind of place where there is a dress code and men go after a long day at the office to drink and avoid going home to their families. While you need to be a member to go to the Club, membership is not required for the cigar bar. The Club looks quite exclusive and I worried I would be stopped at the door, but I wasn’t and I was able to go to the second floor to Uralli Cigar Bar. It is a bit of a weird room. The whole building is old, but somehow this room feel less old; maybe like it was renovated (more1980s than 1880s). That said, I had a great time. It was very quiet when I arrived about 10:30pm). Just two people at the bar: a couple from Detroit. They were very friendly and they and the bartender and I chatted for over an hour as I enjoyed a cigar and a cocktail. They did have a small selection of cigars for sale, but I didn’t check them out as I had my own and, after a few cocktails already that evening, my attention to detail was waning. I would have happily stayed for another round, but it was late and I was pushing the limit into being tipsy.

Did it My Way Detroit Cigar and Wine Bar. The newest cigar lounge in Detroit at the time we went, this place is slick. It is fancy in a VIP, urban way with an illuminated bar, stylish lounge furniture, and cool art. Importantly, it has a big walk-in humidor for shopping as well private humidor lockers for cigar storage. We went there twice. The cocktails were great, the music was good, and the bartenders were friendly. The first time we went it was earlier in the day and it was quieter and chill; the second time it was evening and the place was hopping. Both were great experiences.

I found online many other places to smoke in and around Detroit (I regrettably did not get to Byrd’s Cigar Lounge), but only visited these four, all of which were walking distance to each other. Smoking outside in Detroit elicited no negative comments or nasty glances. It was a non-issue. At each of the smoking lounges, not only was there a varied cross section of patrons, but there were even people who did not smoke cigars enjoying the space. It dd not feel snobbish. It was so refreshing to be able to enjoy a cigar without being hidden away or segregated. Sometimes it feels like places like this are disappearing in North America, but Detroit made me and my cigars feel welcome.

Vietnam Vietnam Laos trip 2024

Return to Ho Chi Minh City

I wanted to go to Laos. It was the second-to-last country in Southeast Asia that I had not visited (apart from East Timor), and it was sitting as on my map as a hole that needed to be filled; however, to get to Laos from Vancouver I would have to fly through somewhere else in Southeast Asia. I decided to fly through Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a place I had been to before, but was happy to revisit.

I would only have a little bit more than 24 hours in Ho Chi Minh, but that was more than enough to soak up a bit of atmosphere and food since my last trip to Vietnam in 2013.

I flew direct Ho Chi Minh from Vancouver and landed late morning. Things had changed since I was last there; last time I had to send my passport away to the embassy in Ottawa to get a visa. This time, I had to only do an e-visa online, which was quick and painless. It was not painless in terms of the giant queues at the airport for people with their e-visas, but I paid a little bit extra to have somebody walk me to the front of the queue. When they first approached me about this, I thought it was a scam, but it was well worth it as it probably shaved about an hour off my airport time.

I took a taxi from the airport to my hotel. I was staying at Little Saigon Boutique Hotel. It was small and located in the interior of one of those dense city blocks in Ho Chi Minh where if you can penetrate the perimeter buildings to get to the centre of the block, there’s a reasonably pleasant network of alleyways, hidden coffee shops, residences, and small hotels. This place was great. It was walking distance to pretty much everything that I wanted to do, it had free Wi-Fi, comfortable beds, an astonishingly good free breakfast, and I had my own room and a private bathroom. It was about $50 CDN per night. There were cheaper options, but after such a long flight I didn’t want to bother with hostels or staying further out of the city centre. I thought this place was ideal and was a welcome change from the egregiously overpriced hostel dorms in Barcelona and Stockholm that I had experienced on my last trip abroad.

I had an agenda visiting Ho Chi Minh City this time. There were no touristy things that I hadn’t done that I felt like I needed to do, and while I wanted to casually revisit a couple of sites, the main thing was I wanted to check out was Ho Chi Minh’s cigar lounges. Last time I went to Ho Chi Minh I did smoke, however, I was traveling with my mother and I did not visit any cigar lounges. Since then I’ve heard tales of an opulent and impressive La Casa Del Habano in Ho Chi Minh and I wanted to check it out.

I left my small hotel and went for a bit of a walk around the neighbourhood, passing some familiar buildings and squares. The city felt a little bit different than I remembered it. My memories of Ho Chi Minh were of a city that felt very exotic and where the streets were so thick with humming scooters, that one could barely cross the street. It didn’t feel that way this time. I must acknowledge it in the last 12 years since I was there, I’ve been to many more places in the world and perhaps it just didn’t seem as different to me as it did before. However, it’s also possible that the city too has changed. In talking to some locals, they said that there are fewer motorcycles now and more cars and that the city is more affluent. Whatever the change, it felt good, if less exciting.

I stopped by the market for a bowl of vegetarian pho with some murderous chili peppers in it and it cost me a couple of dollars for this exquisite dish. I say murderous chili peppers because while I am someone who can usually eat and indefinite amount of extra hot chili peppers without any reaction, I put several of these raw chili peppers into my soup and when the liquid splashed on my face and hands, I felt like it was on fire.

I was walking around the city and looking for a place to grab a cup of coffee and found on my map a place on an upper floor of a tall building. I decided to go up. As I was walking up the stairs I passed on the second floor a cigar store and lounge called “Siqar Lounge”. I thought I’d done my research and pinned all the cigar stores on my maps but apparently, I had missed this one. It was small and secluded, but very stylishly decorated and had big old windows that opened up and allowed me to look out onto the street where I watched a couple of scantily clad girls engaging in a photo shoot. [2025 Update: this lounge is currently closed according to Google maps.]

I walked around a little more before finally deciding to have something else to eat. I’m not even sure if I was hungry, but it was so hot outside I just wanted to escape for a little bit. I went to a restaurant called Nhau Nhau; i just stumbled across it, but it was excellent. I had some kind of a small curry and a refreshing beverage that was both citrusy and gelatinous.

But I was on a mission, I headed to the La Casa Del Habano that I had heard so much about, but first, just around the corner I found another spot. Bakolan. A dark and romantic little cocktail bar that was virtually empty, and had cigar ashtrays on the table. I went in and had a cigar feeling incredibly sophisticated and relaxed. In doing some reading after the fact, apparently it is a “hostess bar”, but none of the young ladies gave me any attention.

Finally, I went to the La Casa Del Habano. La Casas are an international chain of cigar stores that are effectively all controlled by a cigar consortium in Cuba. Unless you happen to find yourself at an entirely counterfeit La Casa Del Habano, which I have encountered twice, in Colombia and in Iraq, La Casas are reliable for having excellent stock and good product and sophisticated lounges.

A friend of mine, Stripes, with whom I had visited Cuba for a cigar festival about 10 years prior, had recently visited this lounge and recommended it to me as one of the best he had ever visited. It was everything you’d expect a normal La Casa except it had extra touches. The walk-in humidor was two or three stories high, with cigars piled high in storage on the shelves accessible only by a tall library ladder. Once you bought your cigar and moved up to the second floor, which was a well-appointed cocktail lounge, you could look through the glass window and watch the tobacconists scurrying up and down the ladder, fetching boxes of cigars. I bought a Punch Double Corona and a vodka martini and sat there for about an hour or so relaxing. I will say that of all the things that were cheap in Vietnam, the cigars at this store were not it. This little venture cost me about $130.00 CDN for the cigar and the martini. It was worth it, but I wouldn’t make it a regular hangout. (On the upper floors of the La Casa that I did not visit there is a supper club with live music.)

I walked back to my hotel, which was only about a 5-minute walk away, and went to bed. The next day my flight was at 4:00pm and I wanted to leave myself enough time to get through the airport, so I really only had the morning. I went back to the market for some local, exotic fruits and wandered around the city.

I found three more cigar lounges or stores that I didn’t know anything about but due to the early hour both of them were closed. (The Saigon Cigar Club, Habanos Specialist, and the cigar lounge at the Rex Hotel – and these are just the ones near my hotel. There are so many more in Ho Chi Minh.)

I thoroughly enjoyed my walk around the city and thought that I would be happy to return, even if just for the food and cigars. But I was Laos bound on the 4:10pm flight to Vientiane.

Central America / Caribbean Guatemala North America

Antigua, Guatemala

Prologue

I try not to mix work and travel. That isn’t always possible, and I will work on holiday if I have to, but I try to keep it minimal. But when the law firm I work at, inspired by the working for home trends we all got used to during covid, announced that we could take an extra week away in a remote work ‘workation’, I wasn’t going to let that opportunity pass by. Yes, I would have to work, but I could do it from anywhere. I realized staying in a relatively comparable time zone would be essential and I wanted to go somewhere I hadn’t been. I put on my digital nomad hat and decided on Antigua, Guatemala.

Because I spent my 9ish days in Guatemala mostly working, I’ll condense it down to three posts: one about Antigua, one about cigars in Antigua, and one about my trip to see the pyramids at Tikal.

Arriving in Antigua

I landed in Guatemala City and took a taxi to Antigua. It is cheaper to take a bus or shuttle, but my flight had been delayed by man hours and I just wanted to get where I was going with minimal hassle and delay. I chatted with my driver, Carlos, who told me mostly about the covid restrictions in Guatemala, which was masks required everywhere. Even outside and even in your own car. Of course, as he told me about this and we discovered we were of like minds, we ditched the masks. As it turned out, enforcement was minimal, so I ended up only having to mask indoors.

I had booked myself an Air BnB in the historic centre of Antigua. I am not usually a self-contained apartment rental person (I like the interactive-ness of hostels and having front desk people to answer questions and give advice; but I was there to work, so a quiet place all to myself was required. I chose well. I little one room apartment with everything I needed, including, most importantly, a pleasant courtyard with a table where I could work and a hammock where I could relax. It was simple, cute, and affordable.

That initial drive into Antigua was fabulous. It is so pretty and colorful. The whole town is a Unesco site, so nothing is out of place. All of the buildings are either low rise, colorful, Spanish colonial or grand barroco antigueño buildings. There are no billboards, no advertising, no neon – even the banks had low key signs that sort of disappeared into the overall traditional design. It looked like a movie. Or a dream.

The streets were cobbled. As we drove in, we passed the leafy central park square, which was filled with people at a crafts market, enjoying the shade, or strolling through. It seems like every block revealed some picturesque church, fruit stand, or building. And high above the buildings in the distance were volcanos – proper ones. Triangular mountains with, sometimes, plumes of smoke pouring out of the top. It was all perfect. I congratulated myself for having chosen well.

It was Saturday and it was late afternoon. By the time I left my room, it was getting dark. I used that first evening to walk around and get my bearings. I had dinner from a food cart near one of the churches (something vegetarian and spicy and crunchy with avocados for about $1) and found a cigar lounge near the yellow arch and enjoyed a Cuban cigar before walking back for bed. Antigua felt totally safe, and I did walk around at all hours of the day and night without issue.

The real sightseeing would be the next day – Sunday – before I started my workweek.

Sunday Sightseeing

As this was probably going to be my one free day to see Antigua, I didn’t have time to waste. I got up and out early. The air was beautiful. Warm and sunny, but not hot. I walked out onto the streets which seemed to be lined with trees and bursts of colored flowers at every turn. And this is on top of the colorful and cute buildings. Everything was charming.

Antigua doesn’t have a bunch of big sights or attractions. The attraction is the town itself, for how pretty and well preserved it is. And it does not disappoint. I walked up and down almost all the main streets that day, stopping into churches and cafes as I went.

The local transportation is even charming: colorful and shiny “chicken buses” (repurposed and highly decorated old formerly yellow school buses) rolling down the cobbled streets.

I visited the market at the park and walked down the street with the distinctive yellow arch, which was originally built as a passageway to allow nuns to get from a building on one side of the street to the other.

It definitely feels touristy in Antigua, but as it was still covid times, the tourists were not overrunning the place and it is still certainly a place where people live and work. Most of the people I encountered didn’t speak English (or spoke only very little). And it didn’t feel like all of the businesses were there to cater to tourists only.

There are museums, but I skipped them. I was worried about running out of time to do my aimless wandering.

I think a day in Antigua would be good to see it; two if you want to do museums and enjoy more of the restaurants; three if you want to relax. I was happy with my one day of walking and didn’t feel like I would be deprived when I sat down to work the next day. But as it turned out it was great to have the week; even though I was working, I got to experience more of the daily life and what it is like to have a routine while traveling, which was a bit novel for me.

Work Week

I’ll spare you the details of my work life, but I enjoyed this experiment in remote work. Every morning I got up ridiculously early and went on a lovely walk, each day stopping at some new café, before heading back to my abode.

I would work all day – smoking cigars the entire time – and then wrap it up around 5:00pm when I could. I work much longer days when I am at home, but I could be a bit more efficient working there as there was no chit chat and time wasting. Plus, I was motivated to finish early to I could go out.

Every evening I would walk, go to a different place for dinner or walk around some street I had missed previously, and I would go for a cigar. I have a bit to say about the cigar scene in Antigua, but I’ll put that in a separate post. Suffice it for now to say that cigars remain one of the best ways (for me) to connect with a group of people in a new place and Antigua was no exception.

Café Culture

A word about cafes: Antigua has a lot of great ones. It was overwhelming, actually. So many that were cute or historic, or trendy, or had excellent offerings of beans and methods of delivery. A lot of them had tasty food and vegetarian or vegan treats. It was great. Occasionally I spent an hour in the morning or afternoon working from the ones with wifi. I could have stayed longer to go to them all. I had this plan at one point to discuss my favourites and write little reviews, but that’s not really my thing. Just get out there and stumble on them, drink coffee, and be delighted.

Reflections

This remote work week was a nice routine. Every day when I finished work I was in a foreign city and that felt like a bonus. Like I was getting away with something.

As much as I liked Antigua, I couldn’t live there. It’s too small and I would feel trapped there not knowing how to drive; and as pretty as it is, that would lose its charm, I think. Plus, I think that when the pandemic ends, and tourism is back to normal I could see it being unpleasantly touristy, like Bali. I could probably have spent another week, but I don’t see myself looking to retire there or anything.

It was, though, relaxing. Maybe my most relaxing trip ever because there weren’t a million things to do, and I wasn’t run off my feet doing things all day. It was just work and leisurely evenings. A vacation with relaxation…what a concept. This is pretty new to me, as I tend to travel quickly. I like to learn about a place and experience it, but I don’t relax much and have a restlessness to move on. This was a different experience.

Moving on

Anyway, the last weekend I had there only gave me one more free day. I needed all day Sunday to get home, but Saturday was all mine and there was no way I was leaving Guatemala without seeing the magical-looking Tikal. But that is for another post.

Tag: cigars