Passed yesterday to monk on 1st climb with pala and im tired of meele, always prefered casting. How to allocate stats and what items to aim for?

doing on right now

int int int and more int

hmmmm mana and life is an issues, so watch out!

i havent unlocked monk yet myself unfortunately, but from my experience with rogue, fighter, sami and pally casters,
i would advice to play them hybrid unless you have decent mana, mana per kill/attack gear for the low levels.

having 20 basic int + free stat points at the start will cause a rapid lack of mana unless you have such nice gear.
40 str and 65 dex at the start makes the monk a decent melee character for the first 20-30 levels ( or more ), you can still put all points into int.
with a usual melee setup you should easily make your way up.

once you have a decent mana pool and some mana regen gear, you can shift your gear to caster only.
int is most important of course, but some max mana/life can support you quite nicely as well. aim for a strong mana regen setup, since you will have to regen a lot.
a 15+ setup can fasten your climb by far.

if you play monk as caster, it's pretty similar to rogue caster with mage's gear restrictions.
melee 1-30 and casting further.
all stats should be put into int. 40vit is enough to deal with weak melee zone.

you may need 40 int each on weapon and armor (robe). i recommend to buy int staff now that you could reach warlock after 2 more mq passes