Is Inle Lake a must to see when traveling to Myanmar,and if so, where is it in proximity to Yangon? How best to get to Lake Inle? I am starting to put together an itinerary for a trip and don't want to exclude Inle Lake if it is a must see.

I woudnt say it's a must but it is a nice lake...the water is eerily still and the surrounding mountains make it a beautiful place to visit. You could book a hotel on the lake but a better option is to stay in nearby Nyaung Shew ( not sure iv'e spelled that properly). I stayed their recently and it's a nice town with a local feel..plenty of place's to get food and beer, a local market, loads of bicycle's for hire and some friendly local's.

It was cold at night when i was their too ( january )

Plenty of boatmen trying to get you on a day tour but not in a pushy way. The price i was quoted for a full day on the lake was around $50 for the full boat ( so if there was 6 people it's still $50 ) but you can haggle abit same as most place's in SEA. Other option would be cycling which is pleasant enough...plenty of little temple's scattered around and a nice way to see the local's farming and going about there day to day live's. Not sure you could cycle the whole lake as it is quite big and the road in place's is still under construction...about a third of the way round there's more boatmen that can take you on a boat tour or across to the other side of the lake if you just wanted to cycle.

I went to Inle from Bagan but i think it's around 9-10 hours on a bus from Yangon...possibly only a night bus too as my bus from Yangon to Bagan was one bus per day at night only. I did book that at my hotel though so you could check online or go the bus station to see if there's more avaliable....other than that you could take the train but i heard it's nearly 30 hour's travel time in total.

Not sure if there's an airport..may be someone else could clarify??

All in all nice place, glad i went and worth a visit....only thing i found disappointing was i couldn't rent a motorbike anywhere which would of been great.