Although I have had difficulties in more far-flung locations, I expected them. My most frustrating case of no-one speaking English (or any other language I knew) was in Basle, Switzerland, albeit 20 years ago. I went into a restaurant for dinner. They did not have a menu in English, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was that no one in the restaurant spoke English, French, or Italian. This despite the fact that French and Italian are official Swiss languages and Basle is on the French border. I winged it and just pointed at lines on the menu. I don't remember what I ended up eating but it was fine, if a little dull. I have picked up "menu German" since.

Otherwise, most of my trips are either to places where I do speak a commonly used language like English or French, or I work with native speakers of Russian, Cambodian, Uzbek and the like who also speak English. I did have a bit of a challenge in Moldova, because, while they could understand my Italian, I had more trouble understanding their Romanian.