Bali Behind the Scenes (02)

Using Google Lens to Navigate Foreign Language Obstacles

You don’t have to be interested in off-beat places in Bali for this piece. You just have to be willing — when traveling — to engage with people who do not speak your language in order to accomplish your tasks or goals. And thanks to technology its easier than ever to arm yourself with a tool (app) in order to get satisfactory communication exchanges.

In other words, you are willing to accept the assumption that when you go to a foreign land everyone is not there — just waiting for you to arrive — in order to cater to your needs, in your language, simply because you are spending their currency.

This willingness is especially important if you want to get off the tourist track and have genuine experiences with “locals.” It should also be obvious that the people servicing you at top tourist locations are also locals, but they’ve been trained to use your language and accept certain inter-cultural challenges in order to make your life as easy as possible.

And to a degree, you deserve some pampering while traveling, since you have saved your hard-earned money, set aside your precious time, and perhaps created expectations that everything on your bucket list will be utterly delightful.

But… for many, it’s the unplanned encounters with locals that may create the type of lasting memories you’ve been seeking. The smile you may receive when speaking a few foreign words you remembered during your research for the trip, or a free taste of a treasured local delicacy. It’s something you surely can’t plan, and that’s part of the beauty of the experience. Yet, you can increase your odds of such unexpected gratification if you zig when most people zag.

This is a local soup and noodle shop in Dalung, Bali. It is also the home of the restaurant owners, as you can see in the next photo.

This phenomenon is fairly common, especially for residents along the main drags of small towns. The owners sacrifice their garages for opportunities to pay some bills.

Here’s the menu, in Bahasa Indonesia.

And here’s what happens when I fire up my Lens app:

Google Lens Android Play Store.

Google Lens Apple App Store.

and point it at the menu:

Kwetiaw translated as vermicelli but it’s really fat noodles (yes dear reader, Google is not perfect). And if you noticed “mold” above, I did check with my wife and there’s some sort of fermented food product on offer, but it’s not something I bothered to make note of, as its a hard pass.

Since the price of this app is free (not counting that Google probably has some way of monetizing your screen captures by later sending you targeted ads while your surf the net), it’s still as transformationally glorious a product as Google maps is at getting you accurately around the globe.

So now you can ask yourself, what’s holding you back from hitting the road, Jack?

Upping your travel game just cost you next to nothing.

Later,

Neill