What's first on your bucket list - Angkor Wat or Machu Picchu?

By Mal Chenu

I don't know about Amy, but I am choosing not to take it personally that the editor is this week pitting two ancient - albeit beautiful - ruins against each other.

The temporarily lost cities of Machu Picchu and Angkor are both incredible archaeological portals into civilisations gone-but-not-forgotten due to the buildings they left. But while Machu Picchu revels in its "ruins" reputation, Angkor Wat has been - and is being - attentively restored and maintained.

On the edge of the jungles of Siem Reap - and just north of the current city of the same name - the 162-hectare Angkor Wat complex is the biggest religious structure in the world. Originally dedicated to the god Vishnu, it quickly transitioned into a Buddhist temple, hence its dual designation as Hindu-Buddhist. The ancient city of Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire and Angkor Wat was built in the 12th century by King Suryavarman II, who included solar and lunar time cycles into the design to emphasise that even the heavens agreed he was the boss. Breathtaking at any time of day, Angkor Wat is at its most dramatic at sunrise and sunset, when the rising and fading light bathes the ethereal edifices. And while most people visit during the country's dry season from November to May, the spring equinox is especially popular as the sun rises perfectly perpendicular to the central shrine.

A spectacular five-kilometre-long, 200-metre-wide moat encloses the temple grounds, and the most noteworthy way in is via the Grand Causeway to the Western Gopura, as intricate and fascinating as the temple within. The massive, multi-tiered, multi-towered ornate sandstone temple is an architectural marvel of pyramidal and concentric galleries, a seemingly endless procession of platforms, columns, chambers, stairways, statues and courtyards.

And embedded within the harmonious symmetry of the facades are multitudinous bas-reliefs and devatas. These delicate carvings in the sandstone depict battles, celebrations, deities, Hindu epics and even mundane daily Khmer life. Buddhist monks - the only people who can make an orange ensemble look a la mode - burn incense, conduct blessings and ponder the serenity.

More than just the nation's major tourist attraction, Angkor Wat is so beloved by Cambodians it is featured on the national flag. This is the wat of wats, from its enormous imposing majesty to its tiny complex intricacies. Angkor Wat draws the eye and the awe, certainly compared to the ruins of Machu Picchu, where the view from the ruins is better than the view of the ruins. Machu Picchu is likely to have you wondering - as you gasp for air in the high altitude and plonk down on a rock beside a bemused llama to rest your own ruined knees - "What the hell was I th-Incan?"

By Amy Cooper

Which to choose in this tale of two citadels: Angor Wat, the Buddhist beauty, or Machu Picchu, the Incan icon? You'll be awed either way. It boggles my mind that both these wonders of ancient engineering were constructed centuries ago without modern machinery, wheels or Bunnings and yet still stand proud, elegantly outclassing our modern architecture and offering hope to every ruin aiming to age gracefully.

More boggling still, both were lost along with the empires that built them. It's hard to imagine misplacing such marvels, especially when you first set eyes on Machu Picchu's jaw-dropping edifices perched atop the Peruvian Andes.

Although Angkor's a Khmer dinkum stunner, Machu Picchu has the edge - or rather edges, thanks to its lofty location on a 2430-metre-high mountain ridge between twin Andean peaks. Its 15th-century temples, palaces and dwellings seem to float among the clouds. Sheer cliffs drop a dizzying 500 metres to the winding Urubamba River and Sacred Valley below.

Hundreds of buildings, made from massive granite stones weighing as much as 55 tonnes, defy understanding. How did the Incas haul those boulders up the mountains and stack them, without mortar, so precisely not even a sheet of paper can pass between them?

Tantalising mysteries surround Machu Picchu's purpose. Possibly a royal retreat or a sacred site for the sun worshipping Incas, it's shaped by cosmology, with buildings lined up to the sun's solstice positions. The place radiates spiritual energy.

But it's also about the build-up, and every approach to Machu Picchu is as amazing as the main event. You can trek the Inca Trail on a four-day pilgrimage in the footsteps of its ancient creators, through cloud forest, across mountain passes, up stone-cut stairways and through Inca settlements, arriving at the spectacular Sun Gate to see dawn break over the citadel.

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While transport at Angkor Wat means either haggling with a tuktuk driver or toiling on a bike in tropical heat, you can arrive at Machu Picchu in comfort via an Inca Rail train from Cusco, the ancient Incan capital, taking in mountain panoramas from an open-air viewing carriage ideal for the pleasant 20-degree average temperatures in the May to October dry season.

Angkor Wat has pickpocketing monkeys, but Macchu Picchu has lovable llamas and a bevy of beautiful native fauna including the Andean fox, puma and spectacled bear. You might sight the fabulous cock-of-the-rock, Peru's national bird and entirely unconnected to Machu Picchu's notorious - and very much banned - nude tourists.

The bare truth? I'm not saying the Khmer were meh, but Machu Picchu really is Inca-mparable.