Two pandas enjoy a meal of bamboo shoots in a enclosure at the Giant Panda Research Base in Chengdu, southwest China's Sichuan province on June 24, 2012. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Pandas are among the world's rarest and cutest of animals, with only 2,000 left in the world, but for panda-lovers a luxury tour operator is offering the chance to get up close and personal with the creatures.

Remote Lands, which provides customized trips in Asia for wealthy clients, is offering a few people a year the chance to feed, clean and exercise pandas at the Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Chengdu, China. The guests are given day-long private access to an enclosure that could contain as many as five pandas. According to the BBC, the price of such a unique experience is in the high six figures per person.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding began its program in 1987 with only six pandas and the goal of studying the pandas and promoting captive breeding and conservation, says the center's website. Today there are 111 pandas living there as well as golden monkeys, red pandas and rare birds.

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Catherine Heald, CEO and co-founder of Remote Lands, tried out the Chengdu panda experience for herself and found the center, and the pandas, even more thrilling than she expected.

"I fed them apples and bamboo, and learned that they actually eat only the inside of the bamboo shoots," Heald wrote on the Remote Lands blog. "It was so hard for me to have to break away from them and go home!"

If your lifelong dream is to play with pandas, you can find out more about the tour on the Remote Lands website or contact them at [email protected]. And if you're looking for somewhere to stay, check out the Haoduo Panda Hotel, where the rooms are filled with panda pictures, toys, towels and pajamas.

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