Walking the Edo Sanpu

For more than two and a half centuries Dutch merchants in Japan were confined to the fan-shaped island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. Only once a year were they allowed to leave their golden cage to embark on the Edo Sanpu, a 1000-mile journey to present-day Tokyo in order to pay their respects to the shogun, Japan's absolute ruler.

Now, almost two centuries after the Edo Sanpu's last chroniclers set out on their long and arduous journey, author and Dutchman William de Lange treads in their footsteps to compare notes.