
Our tour guides (who were excellent, incidentally) were forced to make a quick change of plan just before we left Lijiang. Said plan meant that we got to spend a little more time in the old (and less touristy) residential part of Lijiang, and included a ride on horsecarts (4 legs, 2 wheels).

I got to sit in the front row. Since my cart was in the lead, this meant I actually got a view (ahem). The other carts followed so closely together that I think the woman who sat middle-back in my cart probably had horse breath on her neck.
The horses took us to a secondary portion of town that apart from being a bit less colorful, shared a lot of the characteristics of the main tourist-centric old city, such as cobblestones and streams.

We were admiring one of the larger, less-funnelled waterways when the call came that our bus was ready to take us to Tiger Leaping Gorge and Shangri-La. Bring on the tigers!