China

1. Spitting, hacking and spitting

2. "Money grabbing"

3. Chopped up chicken and chicken feet

Tibet

1. Prayer flags at summits and high points

2. Prayer wheels of various sizes, turned by hand, wind, water, or steam (over cook stoves)

3. Tibetan house with colorful decorations and woodwork

4. Yaks, and yak bells

5. Yuan, 8=1USD

6. Tea made with large tea leaves that sink to the bottom

7. Served tea immediately in restaurants

8. Hot water in thermos in Hotels & Guesthouses (Chinese influence)

9. Women dressed in long skirts with pleat in the back and colorful aprons made of strips of cloth

10. Strings of yarn woven into the hair; men wrap around like a headband, women braid into their hair

11. Potala palace, like a museum now

12. Barren brown hills on the Tibetan plateau

13. Glacier blue lakes and streams--Nam Tso, Rawok Tso lakes, Yamdrok Tso

14. Mountain passes and snowstorms

15. Beautiful campsites

16. Road construction going in and leaving Tibet

17. Crossing Eastern Tibet without a Tibetan Travel Permit or an Alien Travel Permit, only with a 3 month Chinese Visa...the rules ever changing around permits (especially after Mt Everest Incident of "Free Tibet"

18. Pang la camping with view of 6 peaks over 8000meters including Mt Everest (Qomolangma, 8844m), Mt Makalu (8463m) Mt Lhotse (8516m), Mt Cho Qyu (8201m) Mt Xixi Bangma (8012m)

19. Leaving Dan Fox ashes on Pang La (Shaman from Dutch tour group chant)

20. Sneaking through 3 checkpoints in eastern Tibet early morning and dark; fortunately taking a ride through an unknown checkpoint

21. Children with hand out saying "give me money"

22. Cycling the Friendship Highway from Shigatse to Mt Everest Basecamp to Tatopani with 12 Kiwi cyclists cheering us on and clapping for us on summits or difficult stretches of roads; and with two East German cyclists Tine and Jorg

23. Monasteries and stupas

24. Walking the Kora in Lhasa

25. Oodles of noodles and rice

26. Chinese takeout for when we camped

27. Chinese Flags on Tibetan houses; Chinese military compounds and convoys

28. Pilgrims making their way to Lhasa; some prostrating, taking a step and prostrating again sliding forward

29. Being invited for yak butter tea along the side of the road by Tibetan workers and pilgrims

30. Lunch with a Chinese road construction crew

31. Monks charging yuan for photos inside temples

32. Outdoor pool tables

33. Lhasa beer, a big bottle 8 yuan

34. Prayer beads

35. "Western" toilets, just no plumbing that works

36. Little privacy in the squat toilets built over the river

37. No concept of privacy

38. Sheep/yak herders peering into our tent at us

39. New "cities" built in the style of cheap version of Tibetan houses to move in Chinese people

40. Om Mani Padme Hum (Hail to the jewel in the lotus)

41. Tashi Delek (Hello)