I also recommend doing most of your leveling <35 in Kunark. The point where it's safe (as a monk) to run around elsewhere is about when FD hits 120 or so (ie it's reliable) and sneak is high enough that you won't spend 10 minutes pressing the button hoping it'll work. As an Iksar, you can't beat how close all the leveling zones are since you can travel through Cabilis freely.
Banking on Antonica is pretty easy. Technically you don't need to do any factionwork, but faction does make it easier. NFP is the easiest 'good' one, and the one I ended up doing (because I can't resist killing dark elves for their meat - no red wine quest for me, I need their flesh!). You don't even have to touch militia faction. Just spend a few hours killing >500 deathfist orcs in WC/EC and you're good to go.
Here's a video I made showing one of the routes you can take to reach the NFP bank as well as how to bank around the wall. I can run around most of NFP without being assaulted, unless I'm an idiot and go near the bard guild where they still hate me.
Still working on highpass faction myself. I'm good with the guards but still need a few hundred more scalps before the banker decides I'm okay. I managed to fix caster guild faction so that Ran jerk won't nuke me to death on sight. A million more CB orcs need to die before I can get into Kelethin. Anyway, as you can see, it's a long road for iksar if they don't want to be hated.