Homestay places were the preferred choice, but we also did hostels and hotels. Basically whatever was available. We also brought a tent, but in China wherever there's a patch of flat land, rice gets planted. We did end up camping in the Himalayas though. There was one point past Litang where all of a sudden it poured down heavy cold rain at 4500m altitude. The ground was soaked everywhere and it was hard to put up a tent. We came across a Yak herder camp who built trenches to keep the ground from soaking. We asked to camp on their land and they were fine with it. They invited us into their tent for dinner, rice and potatoes and butter tea, and we had some small conversations. Good times.
Food was no problem in China. There are good restaurants everywhere except for the Himalayas where we had to cook for ourselves. We realized though that many of the village shops were selling canned coconut juice. We got my sister who lived in Thailand to send us some curry paste packages. Mix with the coconut juice, add rice, nuts, and veggies, and one had a nice meal.