Malaysia forum

For budget accomodation many will recommend Chinatown . However, I prefer Bukit Bintang for food and transportation, and being more KL and less just another Chinatown (because when I go to Malaysia from Shanghai I'm not going to stay in the Chinese section of town).

There is a monorail stop just around the corner from Sahabat Guesthouse (Jalan Sahabat), Jalan Alor is a nice food street with plenty of Cantonese options and otherwise Indian and Malay in the area and Ckt. Bukit Bintang is pretty much the 'night/bar' street of the city.

You are walking distance to the Petronas Towers and a quick five monorail stops from the Sentral where you can catch a train out to Batu Caves. It is also relatively close and easy to get to Kampung Baru - a great place to see older KL and get a bite to eat (http://www.travelfish.org/blogs/malaysia/2011/06/09/kampung-baru-kuala-lumpurs-most-traditional-neighbourhood/). Anyway, it isn't that far from Chinatown and Merdeka Square - much of KL is well connected, but for the main sites of the city you'll find Bukit Bintang very centrally located, my girlfriend and I barely used the rail system and walked all around the locations I mentioned above in two days.

KUL is much smaller as many maps suggest and the nr of real sights is also quite small. Most of the guidebook sights are easy to reach by its good LRT-railsystem, so it does not matter that much.
Bkt Bintang has the pest currently of giant traffic jams, as a new metro/MRT is under construction. Also I as man do not like the constant pestering of massageladies in scarce clothes etc. It is mainly a lot of shopping centres, one is Lot10.
There are free pink GoKL Shuttle buses to Bkt Bntg from BOTH Chinaotwn/Pasar seni (new busstation beside LRT) and from KLCC=Petronas Towers.
For bekpek-budget accomm. ChTown offers most and widest choice, Bukit is more mid-level.
Only area to avoid is Sentral around the main stesyen-unless you are over-anxious to catch a very early bus to KLIA/LCC.