I agree with your friends, spend all three weeks in Sri Lanka. And Sri Lanka has beautiful beach resorts as well, so no need for a stop in Malaysia. Sri Lanka has such rich and varied experiences available, I'm sure you can easily fill your three weeks. Save India for when you have three weeks to spend there.

You might find our Sri Lanka photos to be of interest: www.marlandc.com/SriLanka/index.htm

There are now quite a number of very good Sri Lanka trip reports here, just go to the drop-down menu and choose Sri Lanka.

While I agree that you could spend all 3 weeks in Sri Lanka, do not count India out. It is the most colorful, unique country on the planet and not to be missed. In 3 weeks, you could cover the Golden Triangle, Udaipur and other cities in Rajasthan plus the holy city of Varanasi. After that, your time at a relaxing resort will have been well-earned. Note that India can be challenging in some ways, especially when compared to Sri Lanka. But it is totally worth it. No matter what you decide, do check the weather in September for your resort choice. Both the islands of Malaysia and the various beaches on Sri Lanka have rainy seasons.

One more thing - if visiting friends in Sri Lanka is the purpose of this trip, then disregard the above about India. I think attempting Rajasthan and Sri Lanka in the same trip would be difficult in 3 weeks, but quite doable in 4. If you remain on Sri Lanka for your beach time, do check the weather.

consider flying emerites or qatar and having you beach time there on the way home???

my first india exposure was 11 days (delhi-agra-jaipur-delhi).
we took it a bit slow. last year we spent a month and did kolkata, delhi, varanasi, jaipur, udaipur, jodphur, jailsmer, bikaner jaipur and delhi, with about 4 days in each place. india is a place to move slowly. travel between cities takes all day usually.

personally i would combine UAW with india and do sri lanka as a trip in itself.

click on my name and read my long trip reports

you might seek the help of an indian rep... i loved working with castle and king..

With three weeks I think you should pick one or the other. With four weeks you could split it two and two, with the beach destination either in Sri Lanka or southern India - Kerala or Goa. In fact, I would combine Sri Lanka with southern India rather than the Golden Triangle.

i agree with the other responders to this thread - you could easily spend your entire 3 weeks in Sri lanka, and not see it all; but you could have seen a lot of the best bits, plus spent time relaxing on a beach for a few days at the end.

in three weeks you could see the cultural triangle, explore the eastern coast, visit the national parks of the south coast, drive slowly up through the Hill Country to Kandy, and spend time at a beach resort.

thanks to Kathie we used Boutique Sri Lanka to help us organise our recent trip and they were very easy to work with. [www.boutiquesrilanka.com]