Kuala Lumpur (KL) Malaysia

It was a quick and easy flight from Chiang Mai to KL on Air Asia, which is a discount airline.  There are quite a few discount airlines operating in Asia:  Malaysia Air, Tiger Air, Silk Air, Nok Air (planes are painted like a duck). 

Hotel Istana
Kuala Lumpur

In Hong Kong, we stayed at the Crowne Plaza and we had a club room.  This is an upgrade and well worth it.  The room is nicer and you get to take advantage of the club room facilities, which provides breakfast, afternoon tea, and happy hour (snacks and beverages).  We liked that so much that we upgraded in Bangkok also.  It wasn't available in Chiang Mai and we missed the happy hour, especially since you can't buy beer between 2-5 pm.  We learned to plan ahead and we hit the 7-11 before 2 pm.

Here in KL we chose the club room and an added perk to this upgrade is that the hotel picked us up from the airport which was almost an hour away.  We had a guy standing waiting for us at the airport with our name card.  Great deal, and so easy.  We didn't have to wonder how to get to the hotel.
We opened the door to our room, and it looked nice.  Then Al noticed there wasn't a bed, just a table and two love seats.  Also, the bathroom didn't have a shower.  Puzzled, we left the room, heading to the lobby to ask at the desk if we had the right room.  Out in the hall we noticed there was a second door with our room number on it.  We opened that one up and hot dog, we had a bed.  They gave us a suite!  Sweet!  We found the connecting door to the sitting room. 

Here's what we walked into first

After a couple of hours shopping in the downtown area, we were hot and thirsty.  We hoofed it back to the hotel just in time to beat a thunderstorm, and to enjoy our free happy hour.  Hors d'oeurves at happy hour were full salad bar, hot food (lamb, duck and shrimp), fruits, desserts and full bar.  We called that dinner. 

The malls are huge with multiple floors-they require a map

Lobby area of our hotel-Hotel Istana

Pool area