Istana Hotel

We stayed at the Istana Hotel, KL, en route for New Zealand and Australia and again coming back to the UK, in total for six days. The Istana is a large hotel, very well situated being near shops and malls and just a very short walk to the monorail station. For sites not easily accessible by monorail or walking (in the humidity and heat), there are ample taxis outside the hotel at all times and the efficient and friendly doormen will get you one.
This is a lovely hotel with charming staff, excellent service and super food. We had a standard room which was in fact large and very good value. The air conditioning worked well (fortunately) and we had a reasonable view over KL. Everything was very clean.
Breakfast was included and we paid extra for evening meals as the restaurant had a superb choice of European, Malay and Japanese dishes. However, being a Muslim country, there were no pork products (e.g. sausages were chicken and bacon was beef or turkey bacon) but it wasn't a problem. Waiting staff were very friendly and helpful. When we left the second time, a waitress asked me when we would be coming back so she would know when she would see me again! It may be just very good manners but I thought it was very touching and I felt quite emotional; probably, too, because all the people we met, Malays and Chinese, were so friendly and helpful throughout KL. My wife was a little less impressed, though! As a Muslim country, you do soon realise that men are treated with more respect than women and my wife was a trifle irked when it was me who was always asked what we wanted to eat, drink, etc.. or where we had been or wanted to go....and so on. No offence was ever intended, it is just a very different culture.
We usually sat in the lounge at night listening to superb Philippino group who were playing there at that time, the Third Dimension. It was cool with a gently tinkling fountain in the background with the tropical night outside visible through the floor to ceiling windows lit by all the coloured lights in the grounds. Drinks were on a par with UK prices but most everything else was cheaper (and taxis less than a bus fare in the UK!).
Outside the hotel, everything is very clean and orderly; absolutely no graffiti, no vandalism, clean, smart and cheap public transport, etc. We always felt 100 per cent safe, day or night. Malaysia is an object lesson to the UK here!
I'd love to go back and would definitely stay in the Istana again.