AL-HAJAR MOUNTAINS, Oman Nov 7 PA – Welcoming us into his majlis, a private meeting room for guests, we sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor while our guide Salim extracts the seeds from pomegranates he's picked from his garden.

This colourful fruit is a staple in Oman, along with dates, which he also hands out, showing us how to remove the stone with our thumb in one swift movement and advising us to knead the date between thumb and forefinger to improve its flavour. I end up in a sticky mess – it obviously takes practice.

Here, in the quiet of the al-Hajar Mountains in north Oman, you could be a million miles way from the glitz, glamour and opulence of neighbouring Dubai, a tourist destination six hours drive away, which has become the watchword for high-rise decadence and expensive sheen, a haven for expats and tourists who want to enjoy the best luxury in the world and the fast, social whirr that goes with it.

Today we're in a much calmer, quieter place, as Salim takes us to a wadi (valley), where we weave our way through an orchard of ripe pomegranates, not a tourist in sight.

Walnuts are also in season when we are there in autumn, but we miss the colourful rose blooms which bring a riot of colour to the region in April, and provide a livelihood for inhabitants who make rosewater to add to Omani coffee and sweets, and keep village houses sweetly scented.

Oman, the second-biggest country in the Arabian Gulf after Saudi Arabia, boasts mountains, desert, beach and history, as well as 1635km of coastline fringing the Arabian Sea. So it's surprising that holidaymakers seeking adventure haven't heard more about it.

Expats and Emirate families in neighbouring UAE and Saudi Arabia go camping in Jabal Akhdar (Green Mountain) in the al-Hajar mountain region, a spectacular and relatively undiscovered area where villages cut into the sandstone and limestone rock have existed for centuries, undiscovered by tourists until very recently.

Yet there are things to see. There's Diana's Viewpoint, named after the late Princess of Wales who visited in 1986. Apparently, she was friends with the Sultan and had been camping nearby.

And there's Nizwa, the second-biggest city after the capital Muscat and home to a famous fort, where you can find an animal market, a silver souk and pottery stalls.

There are plans to create mountain biking trails, caving experiences, off-roading and abseiling activities in the mountains but for now, although several hotels are being built, Jabal Akhdar remains relatively untouched by tourism.

The main mountain road only opened in 2005 and its checkpoint at the base is manned by police who will only allow 4WD vehicles in because of the steep gradients. There's not much traffic, but watch out for wild donkeys and goats crossing the road.

Oman is enjoying a golden age, with better education and health programs. Yet it was only in the late 1990s when the Sultan provided mountain villagers with slightly more sophisticated housing than their rocky shacks, setting up nearby houses with running water and electricity, but close enough to the old villages that the inhabitants could continue their farming practices.

Today, the mountains remain well protected. Only Omanis who were born in the mountains can own a property there, so hotels will have to tread carefully. The beautiful new Alila Jabal Akhdar spa hotel we are staying in is a joint venture between a local landowner and Alila, which is managing it.

A two-and-a-half hour drive from Muscat, the hotel is dramatically perched on a cliff edge, overlooking a stunning gorge with sensational views.

Alila has been careful in designing the hotel to match the rugged surroundings, employing masons using traditional methods to build it out of local stone.

The scent of aromatic frankincense, from indigenous trees, wafts through the foyer, while the decor inside also represents all things Omani, from woven circular mats traditionally made from date palm fibre which adorn the walls and were used to sit on in the majlis, to the authentic pottery, paintings and hand-painted stencils of juniper leaves (the juniper tree is indigenous to the mountain range and its components used to make medicine). The library is filled not only with books about Oman but also relics from its history and fossils from the mountains.

As well as the peace and solitude enjoyed in this mountain setting, the more temperate climate in Jabal Akhdar, which is about 10C cooler than the coast, will give this part of Oman a longer tourist season, as elsewhere the heat is pretty unbearable from May to September, with temperatures reaching 40-50C.

Back at the spa, I relax with a massage and later stimulate my mental senses with a Tibetan sound balancing treatment, where a therapist assesses my chakra flow by balancing heavy bowls on various parts of my body and taps the bowl with wand, which can reveal through the vibrations what energy is blocked and what isn't.

But for me, just a view of the mountains is therapy enough.

My fear is that the undiscovered treasure of the al-Hajar mountain range may all too soon become a pot of tourist gold, but Salim is adamant that visitors will not be allowed to spoil the view.

"Change is good, but we will continue to support the culture, the history and the customs of Oman," he says. "We want to live the modern life, but we need to think globally, live locally."

* Hannah Stephenson was a guest of Alila Jabal Akhdar (alilahotels.com/jabalakhdar)