Actually, there seem to be remarkably few on this forum who have pedaled outside of the usual places or who have expressed an interest in doing so. (I started a thread about touring in developing countries not long ago.)

Native English speakers are spoiled, as it has become the de facto world language. I like studying languages and can speak several to varying degrees. Probably the most linguistically isolated I've felt was when I was touring in Laos. I was able to make myself understood with the help of a phrasebook. As was also suggested, it helps to have a bilingual map, too.

I toured in Czechoslovakia back when it was one country and communist. At that time, kids there studied Russian in school, not English. Most adults who were over the age of 40 then could often speak German, however. Anyone who worked in a hotel, restaurant, or bar, was required to be able to speak German because the vast majority of tourists at that time came from either East or West Germany. I got by OK by speaking German.

In Sri Lanka, road signs and many business signs were in English, and I could virtually always find someone who spoke decent English. When I arrived in one town on my bike, I was approached by a German who told me he was on a bike, too. He initiated our conversation in English. While we were talking, I was approached by an English-speaking tout who wanted to get me to stay in his guesthouse. (This didn't happen as often as I understand happens in India.) Anyway, the tout got to be annoying and wouldn't leave us alone, so I started speaking German with the German guy, and the tout eventually left since he couldn't understand us.

There have been several times when I've translated for folks. I remember overhearing a Japanese traveler and a French traveler trying to converse in English. They both had really strong accents and couldn't understand each other's English, so I helped them out. I helped an American converse with 4 French tourists in California. Afterwards, the American guy asked me where I learned my English.

Another time in a hostel in the French Alps, I was looking at my maps and another traveler asked me in excellent French if I happened to have a guidebook for Switzerland. I told him that I did, but that the book was in English. He said that that was fine, and asked if he could he look at it for a few minutes. I got my guidebook and we continued to speak in French. After several minutes, he suddenly switched into English, the Australian version. So I also switched into English, the American version. A young woman who was seated nearby interrupted us because she was taken aback by our sudden language switch. The same thing happened at an airline office in Paris, where I was trying to learn about my lost luggage. The guy at the counter sounded like a native French speaker to me, and we had been conversing entirely in French. After we had spoken for a few minutes and he had located my flight info, he suddenly switched into native speaker English, the Irish version.

I used to have a French accent when I spoke Spanish. I think I've mostly gotten rid of it. Anyway, I was touring in Mexico with a friend, and a young Mexican woman was telling us about some places to visit near her town. I didn't understand all of what she was saying, and she asked me if I spoke French. I said yes, and she proceeded to tell me everything in fluent French (which I speak better than Spanish). It turned out that her grandfather was originally from France and she grew up speaking both Spanish & French.