I suppose I’d been visiting Oman long enough not to be shocked by the rare mix of exoticism and extravagant comfort; for years now, the sultanate tucked between Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, has been at once remote and luxurious, full of adventure and strikingly safe. For many, it’s the thinking person’s Dubai—low-key and elegant, where its neighbour looks like the bastard child of Beverly Hills and Las Vegas. If you want malls, go to the city of Lamborghinis in the sand; if you want walls—a reserved, mysterious and protected place that invites you into centuries of sophistication—head to Oman. With a population a fifth of Mumbai’s scattered across a country larger than Britain, it’s like the flawless topaz hidden under the gaudy jewel box of the emirates.

As soon as Sultan Qaboos bin Said, now 70, came to power in 1970, he decided to proceed with the care and caution demonstrated even today by local drivers on their largely empty roads. Learning from the mistakes of other oil-rich states and determined not to lose the old and the distinct, even as he brought much-needed modernity to his land, he slowly fashioned a tasteful, bespoke, understated version of Arabia that did not aim to erase tradition so much as to heighten and clarify it with the help of the new.

As late as the 1960s, there were exactly three schools, two hospitals and nine kilometres of sealed roads in all of Oman; the sultan of the time, the current ruler’s father, had retreated to his palace in the southern city of Salalah, banned sunglasses and radios, and even locked the doors of Old Muscat at night in an effort to preserve his nation. Now, Muscat has opened up—and all its buildings are white, or painted pastel colours, constructed in traditional style and less than nine storeys high. The result is a city that looks like a bone-white vision of a fairy-tale Arabia, even as it now has an opera house, a new airport under construction and fresh hotels coming up.

“Ladies here in Oman work—and drive,” Hilal told me as we passed the palaces of Old Muscat. “Not like Saudi Arabia.” Sultan Qaboos realised that oil would be gone soon, so he encouraged his people to engage with the modern world, and fashion lives that would not run out when the oil did. “Here in Oman, the taxi drivers are Omani,” Hilal continued, with unfeigned pride. “The construction workers are Omani. Seventy-five percent of the population is Omani. Only we have tailors, foreigners. Laundry. Hairdressing…” The contrast with the other emirates did not need to be spelled out.

I’d visited Oman before and savoured the misty, even mystical monsoon season, the khareef, in the south, which turns the Dhofar region into a cool, green sanctuary for Arabs from across the peninsula. Less than three hours by daily flight from Mumbai, with beaches more unspoiled than Thailand’s, forts as glamorous as Rajasthan’s, and deserts and mountains as spectacular as anything you’d see in Australia or the American West, Oman struck me as a treasure waiting to be discovered.

Now, returning 10 years on, I thought I’d spend a week travelling around the north to see what kind of pleasures might await a visitor today. The rare place of deep foreignness, where no shopkeeper hassles you and taxi drivers patiently count out their notes in your palm to make sure they’re not short-changing you, Oman continues somehow to open its doors to everyone without ever quite losing its soul. The only challenge is to see it before the rest of the world gets in on the secret.

Al-Waha hotel at Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa.

I based myself on this trip at the Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort and Spa, tucked behind dramatic limestone cliffs and around a private beach a few miles outside of Muscat. Taking over a largely forgotten bay at Bandar Jissah, the Shangri-La came up with the idea of opening three separate properties, linked at the core: al-Waha, aimed at families (complete with its own souq, amphitheatre and archaeological site); al-Husn, a sumptuous ‘six-star’, adults-only castle; and, in the middle, the more businesslike al-Bandar. All three have 17 restaurants scattered across them. But those staying in al-Husn, as I did, can enjoy a stately afternoon tea in a palatial courtyard while families with kids can romp around a river and an Omani Heritage Village not far away.

Within 10 hours of arriving in the country, I was out on the water, watching schools of dolphins flourishing through the air, five of them knifing through the waves like synchronised swimmers and 30 in all, on every side of our little vessel, cresting over the blue-green bay. Oman has long been home to some of the world’s most accomplished sailors; Sindbad was said to have come from here, and between the 18th and 19th centuries, its navies had brought parts of Pakistan, Zanzibar and Kenya under Omani control. As a sweet-smiling teenager from Oman’s shipbuilding capital of Sur piloted us through the water, the stony, sand-coloured landscape of the interior was broken up by green waters and headlands, red and golden in the sun.

The old town of Muscat, 15 minutes away by car, is most notable for its calm: if you walk through the small souq in the Muttrah area, you will hear none of the clamour of Istanbul or Old Delhi. And when you are finished at the Bait Al Zubair museum, you can look at the nearby sultans’ palaces and government offices—as stately and pristine as when they were built. One of the grand pleasures of Muscat is walking along the corniche in the dusk—spotlit castles above you and hilltop restaurants such as the Mumtaz Mahal waiting to impress.