"We'd been on the roof of the Jokhang where you get the panoramic view of the Potala Palace and Barkhor Square and where every tourist takes a bunch of pictures," said Chris Taylor, an expatriate history teacher in Hong Kong.
"There was no problem for the Chinese tourists, but on our way down, there was a plain-clothed policeman who checked our camera, and he didn't just check it but zoomed in and looked at every little bit of each photo.
"He stopped at one picture where there were five or six soldiers in the middle distance who I hadn't even spotted. The policeman was very friendly about it, but there wasn't any question about it - we had to delete the picture."
Arriving in Lhasa April 6, the Taylors were among the first foreign tourists to be allowed into the troubled province after a two-month ban as Tibet held a series of sensitive anniversaries.
After a turbulent year in which tourism has been severely restricted, Beijing has reopened the troubled province to foreigners and aims to draw three million Chinese and foreign tourists in 2009.
For Taylor, his teacher wife Justine and daughters Molly, 8, and Martha, 10, it was a holiday that had been more than a year in the planning.
They first tried to visit at Easter 2008 but the March riots scuppered their travel plans - and with only days to go before their visit this month, it appeared they might again be shut out.
"On the Monday before we left, we were told by our travel agent 'There's no chance of you getting in'. Then late on Tuesday I got an email saying 'You're in'," said Taylor.
Tibet was fully reopened to foreign tourists April 5.
"We went partly to go to see (Mount) Everest as it's the best time of year to see the mountain when the air is clearest," said Taylor, a 41-year-old Briton. "But we also wanted to see Lhasa in the context of what's happened in the past couple of years.
"... I always had slight doubts about the morality of going there. But in terms of personal risk, I think it's probably safer now than it is ever going to be.
